The Sign of Choice
by Scotland Evander
Summary: Life was a series of choices. How you picked was how you lived. All it took was one choice to alter the course of life. Sherlock took a step over the ledge, John misplaced a piece of a paper and Mary Morstan picked up a mobile of a familiar looking man.
1. The Falls

**Disclaimer: _Sherlock _was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to _Sherlock_. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of _Sherlock _written by Mark Gatissas well as _The Sign of Four_ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it. **

* * *

_The Falls…_

John Watson met her three times before the morning Sherlock fell off the roof of Bart's.

John was eighteen and home from uni for the summer. She was eight and called Kelia Kensington. His sister Harry had taken part in a local production of _The Music Man_ for the summer. John's attention was caught by the small blonde girl's performance of Amaryllis. There was simply something about the tiny bubbly girl that spoke that while she only had a very minor role in this production, bigger and better roles were in her future.

John had hoped Harry would take up acting, but like many things Harry attempted, she did not stick with it, so John never saw another production with the local talent of Kelia Kensington.

John was approached by Kensington when he was in his last year as a graduate medical student while visiting a coffee shop a few blocks from the hospital he was studying at. While Kensington a popular up and coming actress, John was too busy with school and his studies to pay attention to current pop culture outside his small world of Bond movies and keeping track of which _Simpsons_ episodes he'd all ready seen. When the pretty, yet strikingly plain blonde had introduced herself at Kelia Kensington, though, John remembered immediately his brief introduction to the girl some odd years prior.

While she had not been exactly a beautiful or stunningly cute child, her personality and sweet nature made a lasting impression on John Watson.

"You were a kid last time I saw you! How do you remember me?" he asked, curious. John knew he did not make lasting impressions on people who he'd only met briefly— especially eight year old children.

"Who wouldn't remember being praised by a cute uni student?" she teased, ever the flirty blonde the tabloids played her out to be. Her bright blue eyes sparkled and her smile was almost blinding.

She gave him her number, which he promptly lost. It was only after he'd finally graduated and had a moment to head to the theaters did he realized his grave error in loosing Kelia Kensington's number.

She was a leading actress in an Oscar winning film and was on her way to bigger and larger things.

John joined the army shortly after he completed his degree and became a full fledge surgeon. He had fleeting thoughts about Kensington now and then. Mostly when he'd catch sight of a tabloid or magazine her face graced. He watched through his tours as her star rose higher.

It was on one of his tours that took him to Iraq and not Afghanistan that the American USO brought Kensington, now known as Kensington-Price after her marriage to fellow actor Reid Price, to raise troop moral. John watched from the sidelines as the now aloof and slightly tired looking Hollywood actress worked her way through the crowd of soldiers. He wondered what her life was exactly like that caused her to look similar to his fellow soldiers.

"We've met before," John blurted out one morning when he found her on her own in the mess hall.

Kensington-Price looked at him in a bemused manner till she spotted the name plate. Realization dawned in her bright blue eyes and she scrambled to her feet. She looked at him square in the eye (she was as tall as he was).

"John Watson," she breathed, looking him up and down. "You never called."

"Yeah," John said uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck. "Kind of lost your number in my study materials. Or my flatmate ate it."

They chatted for a few more minutes before Reid Price blew in and dragged his wife away from John, sending the older doctor a glare before they vanished into the blinding, desert sunlight.

Two weeks later Reid Price was found dead, having committed suicide through a combination of drug use and falling off the back porch of their home in the Hollywood Hills.

Kelia Kensington-Price disappeared, leaving no trace behind. She sold her homes, refused to answer her phone and rejected all roles offered to her through a letter stating Kelia Kensington-Price no longer existed.

John Watson read the news a month after it had happened and felt a pang in his chest for the unfortunate young woman. However, he was in a war zone and did not have time to dwell on miss opportunities and what ifs.

When he did have time to dwell on those, he was busy trying to learn to re-use his arm with it's limited motion and walk with a cane.

Then he met Sherlock Holmes.

And life was never the same.

* * *

All it took was one choice.

Life was all about choices. She knew this quite well. She chose to take her acting to the next level, she made the choice to move to London at sixteen and follow her dreams. The choice was hers to marry the trouble Reid Price at twenty-two knowing full well she'd never be able to hunt down the demons that plagued the man.

It was her choice to not allow herself to dwell on John Watson too often, even though the image of the sandy haired, adorable uni student haunted her dreams long after he was long gone.

It was just a crush. A crush on an older man that had lasted the last twenty-one years of her life.

It was her decision to shed Kelia Kensington and become Mary Morstan when the world refused to leave her alone.

Mary Morstan made millions of choices a day, tiny ones, big ones, ones that she put a lot of thought into, ones she put no thought into. Mary Morstan lived her life from choice to choice.

On a brilliant June morning, she chose to go for a walk. She grabbed a light coat and buttoned it up to her throat. She arranged her nondescript brown hair at the back of her head and made sure she'd put the dark brown contacts in before she left the dingy flat she rented in Hackney.

Since Reid's death four years prior, she'd shed the dyed blonde hair and her trademark bright blue eyes. She'd added almost twenty pounds to her formally waif like figure.

The weight hid Kelia Kensington the best, better than the bland brown hair or basic brown eyes. With the twenty pounds, she no longer resembled anything close to the actress everyone knew.

Staring at herself in the grimy mirror hanging near the flat's front door, she smiled at the reflection, as she had the past two years since she'd been greeted with the rounded face, brown eyes and brown hair.

Stepping out of the flat, it felt freeing to be in such a large city and having no one know who she used to be. She walked a few blocks to a Tube station and road the train for a while till she was in the heart of London.

She made a choice to get off at Barbican. The decision was made randomly and without thought. It felt right.

She made a choice to walk down Long Lane towards St. Bart's. Her mind wandered as she walked along on the chilly, yet sunny morning to the time before she had met Reid, before she had gone to LA, before she had taken the role in that movie that changed her life so dramatically.

She almost missed those days, when she had been young and foolish. She stared at her surroundings as she walked around the hospital building. The area looked wonderful and oh so British.

Why had she stayed out of England for so long? She had been frightened to return home, to the city that had been her home before her life had taken on a quality of a bad film.

There was nothing here except ordinary people living their lives and none of them cared what Mary Morstan happened to be doing. She doubted many even cared what Kelia Kensington was doing these days. She was a wash up, has been. She hadn't been heard from for almost five years now. In a word that had the latest news before it happened, Kelia Kensington wasn't even the butt of lame jokes any longer.

Mary turned and walked down another street, rounding the building when she noticed a man looking skyward. Following his line of sight, she felt her blood run cold.

There was another man standing on the roof of the hospital.

"SHERLOCK!"

Her attention snapped to the other man, eyes going wide.

She knew what would happen next. Every inch of her was overcome with frosty cold. She felt frozen, scared and out of her element. Aching familiar panic welled within and squeezed her heart muscle tightly.

The man on the ground dropped his mobile. It fell in slow motion, tumbling over itself till it landed on the ground. It did not shatter, crack or look otherwise damaged from where Mary was standing five feet away.

She heard the noise— the sicking thud of a body landing on pavement, the gasps, shouts, screams. Her eyes remained on the fallen mobile, not bothering to notice the fact the other man was on the move till she heard another body thud.

Suddenly, the movement her body was capably of registered within her mind and the world began to move again. She ran forward and scooped up the fallen mobile. She turned to find the man on the ground had been hit by a bicycle and was getting to his feet while the biker moved on as if nothing had happened. The Man on the Ground began stumbling across the street to the body of the Fallen Man.

Mary made a decision. It was one she made without thought. It was as easy as breathing.

She followed the Man on the Ground, watching him as he made his way to his fallen friend.

"I'm a doctor, let me through," he said in an achingly familiar voice, stumbling a bit into the people who had gathered around the fallen body. "Let me through, please."

His voice was like nails on a chalk board to Mary's ears.

She knew the voice. It haunted her, even if it was missing the kindness, warmth and usual ease her memory has assigned to it.

The people gathered around the fallen body attempted to keep the other man away, but he managed to grab the body's wrist. His fingers wrapped around the pale, thin wrist.

The man broke into a million pieces.

"Nggg, Jesus, no…God, no…"

Mary watched him shatter over the body of his dead friend, whose light-colored blank eyes stare endlessly into the blue sky.

There was movement from behind Mary. She moved aside and allowed people to rush forward with a stretcher. The other man crumbled into a heap, an older woman holding onto him while he morned in public.

The world stopped spinning again as Mary took a good look at the man's face.

She knew him.

He was older, had more lines and wrinkles, and his hair was beginning to grey a bit, but she knew him.

John Watson.

The body was loaded onto a stretcher and whisked away in an efficient manner. So much so, Mary half wondered if it was planned somehow.

The whole thing moved like a perfectly orchestrated scene. Something prickled at the back of Mary's mind, but her attention snapped from the problem to the fact it was John Watson who was broken in a similar manner to how Kelia Kensington had broken four years prior.

The crowd broke up, leaving the grieving John Watson behind. An all too familiar feeling crept into Mary's heart seeing the man staring blankly ahead and at a loss.

That was her four years ago when she watched Reid tumble over the railing. She had been helpless to stop him, as he'd locked her in the house in order to fall to his death on his own.

He had wanted to die. He had planned for her to watch him, to see him end his own life.

Mary still did not understand why Reid had done what he'd done, died how he had chosen and took the drugs he did when he had so much to offer the world.

He had not seen it that way. To Reid the world was empty, pointless and cruel. To Reid, he had nothing to offer, nothing to live for. He had spent years drinking himself to a slow death. There had been car crashes, probation and rehab. Then the cocaine began. He slowly spiraled out of control and there was nothing she said or did changed his mind.

Reid Price knew what he wanted. When he wanted it, he got it. That was how his life had worked since he was a child. Reid Price had wanted death, so death he got.

She loved him. Or she thought she did. Did she love him or the idea of him and what the press saw in him?

She didn't know any longer.

For a second, Mary was scared her emotions would get the best of her and she'd start crying all over again and be unable to stop.

Instead, her acting chops took over and she went into protector mode. John Watson was unsteady and needed help.

John Watson, the man she'd had a crush on in some form since she was eight.

Memories flashed in her mind.

…his blue-blue eyes lighting up when he smiled down at her eight year old self and praised her performance. He was the first person to do so without assessing how plain her appearance was or making a suggestion on how to physically change herself.

…him throwing his sandy blonde hair out of his those same blue eyes some eight years later when she came across him in a coffee shop. The shy blush that crept into his cheeks when she scribbled her number on a scrap of paper and said, "Call me maybe?" She had winked and him and swung her hips as she exited.

…the rugged smile that broke across the man's face when she leapt to her feet and had scolded him for not calling her all those years ago.

Those same blue eyes and mouth were lost in pain, grief and confusion.

_He likely has a concussion of some sort from his run in with the bike,_ Mary thought as she slowly walked towards the man, careful not to step into the blood staining the concrete.

She did not look at the blood. Unlike most blood she had been faced with, this stuff was real. She was not on a set.

She only looked at John, taking in how the years had aged him since she'd last saw him. She likely looked different, between her heart ache, years and weight gain.

"Sir?" she asked, her voice firm and loud. "I have your phone."

The man blinked, turning to look at her.

They were the same height. He took her in, the brown hair and eyes. The round, but plain features of her face.

He had no clue who she was. There was nothing familiar about her in the state he was currently in.

She was relieved and depressed by this fact.

"John Watson?" she asked, unable to stop herself.

The man nodded, not surprised she knew who he was even if he did not know her. She reached up and put a hand on his arm. He looked back at her, his eyes still rather unfocused. She pulled out her keys, where she kept a flashlight just in case she ever needed light in a dark place. Remembering a time she played a doctor, she used the flash light to check his pupils. She was unable to remember exactly what she was looking for, but from the dialogue she remembered, if the pupils did not dilate like normal, it was highly likely there was something wrong.

The man's pupils did not react like normal.

"I played a doctor on TV once," she offered rather lamely as he stared at her with a look that told her he was confused at what she was doing. "Granted, you are one, but in my unprofessional opinion, I think you've got a concussion."

"Sherlock—"

"There happens to be a hospital right here," Mary went on, talking over him. "How about we go in and sort you out?"

He nodded.

"He's dead," John whispered. "He's dead."

"You'll be okay," Mary stated flatly. "It might take awhile, but you'll be fine."

She knew it was rather heartless to say and she had hated when people told her that after Reid had thrown himself over the railing of their patio, but it was the truth.

She was okay. It took awhile, but she was fine.

Or at least that was what she told herself daily. She's really believed till a few minutes ago when the memories rushed back into her head.

She was less than fine. She had moved on, moved passed her romantic feelings for Reid and accepted the fact he was dead and had refused to live, yet at the same time she still did not understand.

She would never understand. The therapist she'd seen in New Zealand told her she never would and the faster she accepted it, the faster she'd be able to live her life again.

"I'm Mary, by the way," she said, tugging on his arm to get him to walk. He stumbled forward. Using her other arm, she steadied him. Together they began walking, careful to not step in the pool of blood.

"Oh," he muttered. "Sherlock…I…no…"

He tried to turn to go back to the scene, but using her strength, she managed to steer John into the hospital. She decided to write a letter of thanks to the idiot who convinced her she ought to continue to do yoga daily.

* * *

Mary studied John Watson's mobile. He had not taken it when she'd offered it, so she still had it whilst she sat in the waiting room. John had been swept off by a crew of nurses who knew him before Mary could even state what she believed was wrong with him.

Per the phone, her guess that this was the same John Watson she'd known of for years, Mary put in a call to the contact named HARRY WATSON, assuming it was his sister.

She was correct.

Harry Watson was indeed Harriet Watson. Harry was also an alcoholic, judging by the slur in her voice when she answered the phone. It was clear within minutes Harry wouldn't be dropping everything and appearing at the hospital to care for her brother by the fact Mary had told her three times the events of the morning, and the information did not sink into the alcohol soaked brain of Harriet Watson. Mary deduced John didn't have the best relationship with his alcoholic sister. After hanging up on the soon to be blacked out woman, Mary flipped the phone in her hand and stared at the charging port. Sure enough, there were the tell tale tiny scratches one always found on a drunks phone.

The phone was clearly Harry's before she gave it to John. More than likely upon his return from service. She must have broken up with this Clara person, who must have been her partner judging by the three kisses following the _Love, Clara._ Not wanting to look at the engraving, Harriet gave the phone to John. Maybe because she hoped he'd actually call if he owned a phone?

Going back into recent calls, she noticed Lestrade. She checked the text messages the two had traded and figured out they were friends of some sort. Or colleagues. They texted about bodies and crime scenes. And Sherlock.

She called him next.

"John? Where are you?" the man asked the moment he answered.

"John is in the hospital," Mary answered. "I'm Mary Morstan. I picked up his mobile when he dropped it. There's…well, there's been an accident."

She felt odd. Should she tell this man about Sherlock? If the texts were anything to go by, this man knew Sherlock.

What an odd name. Oh, who was she to judge. Her mother named her Kelia and pronounced it KEL-Lee-AH.

"Mary Morstan? Do I know you?"

"No, I doubt you do, seeing as I was just walking passed when…" She trailed off remembering what had happened, even if she hadn't seen it. She had heard it.

No one should jump like that to end their life. And he'd called John before he jumped, as that was the last call the phone had answered.

Mary was pretty sure she was going to need to go back to seeing a therapist.

"A man jumped off the roof of St. Bart's," Mary forced herself to finish.

"What are you—" the man paused, someone talking to him in the background. "Sherlock?"

"I take it you knew him?" Mary asked.

"Wait. Sherlock is dead? He's the one who jumped off the roof?"

"I believe so. I'm not sure. John was hit by a bicycle after the man…"

"You witnessed it?"

"No. I was watching…." Mary trailed off again, unable to admit she had been staring at the mobile falling to the ground. "I called his sister, but from his text messages, you seem to be closer to family or friend than her."

John messaged Sherlock more than anyone else, the guy who tossed himself off the roof. Mary wasn't an idiot. She had spent most of her life watching people, reading people and trying to figure out without speaking to them what their life stories happened to be. It helped her acting. From John's reaction to Sherlock's fall in combination with the text messages the pair traded daily, they were best friends, if not something more.

Sherlock was likely John Watson's emergency contact at the end of the day, not this Lestrade character.

"Oh. I'll…who are you?" Lestrade asked.

"Mary Morstan," she repeated. "And you are?"

"Detective Inspector Lestrade," came the flat reply. "For the time being."

She had no idea what he meant by that. She could hear someone talking to him in the background.

"I'm still going, Sally," he snapped. "I don't care."

The Sally person said something, which made DI Lestrade snap yet again. Mary imagined the man storming off through the vague, grey, windowless halls of Scotland Yard.

Well, what Scotland Yard looked like in Mary's head. She'd never actually been in Scotland Yard and all TV shows and movies made it look rather different than it actually looked. Or so she assumed based on the varying interiors.

"I'm on my way. Traffic. Might take me awhile. Don't move."

He hung up before Mary could point out he didn't actually know where she was.


	2. Such an Illusion

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_Such an Illusion…_

Twenty minutes later, Mary was still scrolling through the various contacts on John Watson's phone. You could tell a lot about a person by the contacts in their phone. People who wanted to be well like and make it look like they knew everyone had a lot of numbers in their phonebooks, but only maybe regularly called three or four. Super social people had contact lists that made your head spin. Theses sorts also tended to contact at least twenty or more people a day. Private people had only a few numbers programed in and contacted maybe two or three people often. If someone stole Mary's phone, they'd think she was a hermit.

She had one number saved in her phone book: her employer.

She did not text anyone, so there weren't any texts. She called only maybe a handful of numbers, but none with regularity.

Her life as Mary Morstan was dreadfully boring.

She loved it.

John Watson had very few contacts and only regularly phoned or texted with Sherlock, Lestrade and someone named Mike Stamford. He called his sister maybe once or twice a month.

John Watson clearly lived with Sherlock, if the talk of milk and things in the fridge were anything to go by. The pair worked together in some capacity, as they met with DI Lestrade often at crime scenes.

John's texts with DI Lestrade were usually about Sherlock. They occasionally met for a pint, but mostly they talked about Sherlock who was often ignoring Lestrade.

Stamford was a friend, fellow doctor and worked at Bart's with someone named Molly.

John wasn't romantically linked with Sherlock, judging by the number of females he texted with over the course of the life of the phone.

John Watson was a serial dater. He did not save the number after he stopped dating the woman, but he didn't delete the texts either.

"So, what have you figured out from him phone?"

Mary slowly lifted her head to find a salt-n-peppered (more salt than pepper) haired man staring down at her. He was stocky, with a kind but rugged face and warm brown eyes. His hair seemed to have a life of it's own, but was close cut. He had clearly not gone to bed the night before, between the state of his hair, the stubble dotting his jawline and the rumples in his cheap suit. He'd also lost his tie at some point. Or didn't bother to wear one.

"He has a few friends and dates a lot," Mary said, tucking a peice of hair behind her ear. "Are you DI Lestrade?"

"Yeah," the man said, pocketing his own mobile. He must have a track on John's phone. There had to be an app for that. "I'll take that, as I'm sure you've figured out John and I are…friends."

Mary nodded, extending the phone out to him. She was curious why he had paused for so long before admitting they were friends. The DI took the mobile and slipped it into his other pocket. He asked her a few more questions about what she'd seen when Sherlock Holmes (he used the man's full name each time he referred to him) fell from the roof. She answered honestly, yet felt something was off with the DI in front of her.

"Can I ask you a question?" Mary inquired, standing up. The DI was taller than her, but not by much. If she put her heels on (which she wouldn't unless someone held a gun to her head), she'd be about the same height as him.

"You can try," the man said, his eyes darting around the waiting room.

"What happened?"

"Huh?"

"I have a feeling I'm missing something important. If I'm totally honest, I feel like I just walked into a movie at the worst possible moment," she admitted. "I'm grasping at straws and getting nowhere in figuring out the plot line of this story."

DI Lestrade stared at her, his eyes stating she was right. She's walked into the movie right at the climax without knowing any of the backstory. And he wasn't about to tell her what the hell was going on.

Her eyes drifted down to the pocket of his trench coat he'd stored John's phone. The phone gave her snipits of a life, glimpses into a rich story.

"Who is Sherlock Holmes? The staff have been all looking glum, the nurses who took John into care all knew him, and while his contact list is very short and the people he actually communicates with is very limited, his phone was getting notices like whoa."

DI Lestrade stared at her, looking almost fearful. He pulled the phone in question out, flicking the screen to life with one finger.

"Three hundred and forty-two emails," he whispered. "Only?"

"I turned off his mail app," Mary replied. "He got over half those notices from when I picked the phone up and I gave him to the nurse. In a span of maybe ten minutes."

"I take it you don't read the papers, Ms Morstan?" Lestrade asked carefully, putting the mobile into his pocket again.

"No. I've also been out of the country for a few years," she said slowly.

"Where?"

"New Zealand," she replied smoothly. "Thailand, India, Vietnam then back to New Zealand after I got tired of all the dirt and raw sewage."

Mary didn't mention the real reason she had no clue what was going on in the world: she did not read the papers, watch the news or use any sort of social media.

It had no reason to do with not actually being in the country.

"So, you don't know who Sherlock Holmes is?"

Mary shook her head. "Should I?"

"He's been in the papers quite a bit recently," Lestrade offered, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked up and away from Mary. "And today…"

The older man trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. He appeared as if he was in pain, denial and suffering from a massive bout of regret. All at the same time. Lestrade turned back to her, meeting her eyes, then studied her, eyes sweeping up and down her again.

"Well, thanks for the mobile," DI Lestrade said. "I…I'm…"

He lost his words. Without thinking, Mary put a hand on his forearm, bringing his attention back to her.

Greif. His eyes shown with grief and regret he was attempting to smother. He did not understand what had happened, did not know how to deal with what Sherlock had done. Looking harder, she got the feeling Lestrade was almost frightened of facing John.

"You knew Sherlock well, didn't you?"

He did not answer her. He took a shaky breath in.

"I don't know where he went!" someone shouted off to the left.

Mary tore her eyes off DI Lestrade and noticed a nurse near by getting angry at an uniformed policeman. DI Lestrade took a step away from Mary.

"Well, where did he go?" the policeman asked. "He's not in the room. If he's as injured as you're claiming, then where is he?"

"They might have sent him off for a CT," the nurse insisted. "He's not my patient."

The DI moved over to the policeman and began to question him. Mary watched, unable to hear what was going on. She noted the change in Lestrade's body language though. He was hiding from his emotions now, going into copper mode.

She could leave, she realized as she watched the DI stride away from the police officer and hit the bottom on the elevator to go down. She'd given the phone to the DI and there was nothing keeping her any longer.

The police officer picked up his radio and eyed the DI who was waiting for the elevator.

Mary made another choice: to follow the DI.

She quickly dashed into the elevator before it had a chance to close. Lestrade gave her a funny look, but did not question why she was suddenly in the elevator.

A horrible feeling settled within Mary the moment they entered the corridor that was clearly leading to the morgue. It blossomed further the moment she spotted John Watson, head in hands and sitting outside some doors. He was in a ball on the floor, leaning against the wall, his knees bent. The man was still, almost as if he was a lifelike statue. The DI approached and cleared his throat, keeping well out of reach of the grieving John Watson. Mary glanced at the DI, wondering if he was good friends with John why he was standing so far away and looking so awkward. The man seriously appeared unable to figure out what to do with his hands. They flopped between reaching out and going into his pockets.

John looked up at the noise, eyes red rimmed, but more focused than the last time Mary had seen him. Emotion flickered across John's face at lighting speed. Mary was unable to categorize it, but he clearly wasn't happy to see Lestrade.

"Why are you here?"

The question lacked any emotion and caused the DI to shudder.

"I was just told," the DI admitted. "About Sherlock. Then…"

He looked over at Mary. John looked at Mary, blinked and frowned. Mary gave an awkward smile.

"I picked up your mobile. I called two people, hoping someone would come to look after you, since you didn't take the phone when they swept you off. I called your sister, who…well, you know."

John looked embarrassed. Mary felt worst.

She had hated the people who had called her mother after Reid had died. They clearly had not known her mother at all.

"Then she called me," the DI said, holding the mobile out to John. "And then, uh, Donovan told me about…what happened this morning."

John stared at the DI, not taking the extended mobile.

"I…I…I…"

The older man was floundering for words.

John stared.

"I'm sorry. Sherlock…I know."

"You know," John stated flatly.

"I know he's not a fake," the DI said, voice sure.

"Of course not," John snapped. Then quieter, "Of course not."

John looked away, staring back at the doors.

"Have…they….asked you in yet?"

"No."

"The police haven't…."

"No. They don't want me to do it."

"Oh. Why not? You were a witness and you knew him."

"I chinned the Chief Superintendent last night," John reminded the DI.

The DI flinched and his body sagged.

"They called Mycroft," John stated. "I'm waiting for them to wrap things up and they'll take me to the station."

"You've been here for two hours," Mary whispered. "What is taking them so long?"

"They had to wait for me to be cleared and now they have to find me," John said.

Mary suddenly remembered the policeman looking for a patient upstairs.

"Ah, here you are."

The voice came from behind and was cultured, cold and steady. Looking over her shoulder, Mary found a smartly dressed older gentlemen with an umbrella standing a little ways behind the group, his eyes taking in the DI and John. His expression was aloof, cold and detached till his eyes fell on her. The expression faltered for a moment before reverting back to blank.

"John. Lestrade," the man greeted. "Ms Kensington."

Mary suppressed her gut reaction to throw up, shudder and run for the hills at hearing that name.

"Excuse me?" she asked, looking politely confused.

The two other men stare at her, looking befuddled.

"My name isn't Kensington."

The cold man raised one eyebrow and asked, "Isn't it?"

"No."

"Hmmmm," he hummed, turning his attention to John and the DI. "Have you seen him?"

"No," John snapped. "They won't let me. They also think I'm upstairs."

"I've cleared that matter up, Doctor Watson," the umbrella toting man stated, swiftly moving his attention to the DI. "You are not here to arrest him are you, Inspector?"

"No. I…I wanted to see Sherlock. And John."

Umbrella Man extended his head and looked to Mary.

"I had John's phone. Now I don't. So, I'll just show myself out of the hospital and be on my way," Mary said, backing up a bit from the group of men.

"Did you see him fall, Ms Kensington?" Umbrella Man asked.

"It's Morstan and no. I was…I was…" Mary faltered for a moment. "I was watching John's mobile fall."

Color flooded her face like never before. Umbrella Man quirked an eyebrow, looking rather intrigued by this statement.

"Morstan?" he asked, surprising her. "As in Mary Morstan?"

"The one and only," Mary joked flatly. "Who are you?"

She looked at him closer. His suit was expensive and unwrinkled. The umbrella was pointless, as it was not raining but she had a feeling he always carried it, judging by how no one seemed to notice the fact he had it when the weather was nice. It was also pricey, judging by the handle.

Money. The man oozed it.

He was also highly intelligent. His eyes spoke it loudly as did the fact he _knew_ who she really was. She had a feeling he knew who she was now working for, hence why he knew the name Mary Morstan.

He had a high power and stressful job, if the lines on his face and stance were anything to go by. Also, from the state of his hands, he spent a lot of time with paper. He didn't text, as his thumbs didn't show it. His fingernail on his right index finger was shorter than his other carefully manicured nails, proving he used it to dial numbers all day long. He preferred to talk rather than text.

Government worker.

"MI5?" she hazarded.

Umbrella Man looked a bit taken aback, but gave her a fake smile. "I hold a minor position in the British Government."

That was the understatement of the century.

"Sure, and I'm the President of the United States."

Umbrella Man stared at her for a beat before saying, "No, I'm afraid that wouldn't be feasible. But, you could be Kelia Kensington."

The DI standing next to her made a choking noise.

Mary waited a moment to long to laugh it off. It had been so long since she'd heard the two names actually spoken together to her face, let alone addressing her.

The name sounded ridiculous. What had her mother been thinking?

"I know Kelia Kensington," John said from behind her.

She did not want to turn around, but she did.

"That's not her," John stated flatly.

For some reason, it hurt to find out her disguise worked on John. While it ought to make her proud, she felt sad and lost suddenly.

"Let's get this over with."

John stood up and motioned to the door. The DI nodded and pulled the door open. John thanked her for returning his phone and marched through the open door, quickly followed by the DI.

Mary was left alone with Umbrella Man.

"So, you're the private tutor for the Forresters, are you not?" he inquired.

"Correct. Today is my day off," Mary answered smoothly. "I take it you know them."

"I know of them," he answered smoothly, leaning on his umbrella. "You would be wise to dye that hair a little darker and wear it in shorter. Kelia Kensington was known for her long, flowing hair. You also have a rather well known mouth. Though, it was your nose that really gave you away. I do applaud you at gaining so much weight, it helps hides so much, doesn't it?"

Mary glared at him. She couldn't tell if he was mocking or praising her.

"I suggest you try wearing makeup," he went on. "It would distract from your mouth and nose if you played up those wonderful contacts you've chosen to cover those trademark eyes."

"You know, no one has figured me out for four years."

"I'm not anyone, Ms Kensington," he assured her.

"Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes' brother," he replied before turning and vanishing through the doors to the morgue.

Mary allowed herself to shiver before hightailing it out of the hospital.

* * *

That night she googled Sherlock Holmes.

Her computer flooded with news stories, photos, and websites.

She was up till four in the morning working through the quandary of Sherlock Holmes.

Fake genius? Real genius?

Criminal mastermind? Consulting detective?

Hero? Fraud?

Angel? Demon?

The main source of the fraud theory was unreliable. It was reported in a tabloid, then picked up by the rest of the press. Sherlock Holmes' own website, while dull and boring, illustrated his mental prowess. He had invented a new way of thinking, a new way of observing the world. He used this science of deduction to…annoy people, save the world, and fight crime.

John Watson's blog showed the more human side of the genius, yet still proved the man's ability to deduce things with a mere glance…to aggravate people, find glowing bunnies and fight crime.

By the time she collapsed in her bed, she knew Sherlock Holmes was a mad genius who had a fetish for crime scenes. Instead of trying to commit the perfect crime, he helped the police solve them.

For free.

Sherlock Holmes was arrogant, full of himself, and a show off. He took it to heart the whole world was a stage and he was a performer. If Holmes hadn't been fascinated with chemistry, logic and crime scenes, he could have found happiness in the world of acting. He loved to put on a show.

That she could tell from the YouTube videos that popped up of him doing deductions at crime scenes. Or anywhere for that matter. Sherlock Holmes deduced anywhere and anyone— to annoy, aggravate, show off, save kids, find painting and hunt down murderers.

In a matter of hours after he fell from the roof, a movement cropped up around the fallen genius. People who believed in him continued to post proof that he was real, that his deductions were true. Granted, no one could prove that Richard Brook was this Jim Moriarty person, but that did not stop them from believing in Sherlock Holmes.

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes._

While Richard Brook showed up when you googled the name, it was almost too perfect. His history didn't go back very far if he indeed worked in the entertainment industry. If he was indeed an out of work actor, he'd belong to more groups in order to network himself to find work.

Jim Moriarty showed up no where except in responses and mentions on John's blog.

Mary could not claim to be the best judge of character (she'd married a junkie, alcoholic, depressed actor who refused to get help), she was sure someone as arrogant, self assured and pompous as Sherlock Holmes appeared to be would not allow the press to drive him to leap off a building to his death. As long as he had an audience for his mental dancing, Sherlock Holmes could care less about what the world at large through of him.

He had an audience.

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes. _

So, why did Sherlock jump off the roof?

The question plagued Mary Morstan. She carried it around with her everywhere she went. Each time she ventured into London and saw the posters and the graffiti stating I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES or MORIARTY WAS REAL, the question plagued her.

Why did Sherlock Holmes jump?

She knew why Reid had jumped, knew why Reid had chosen to take his life. She knew the reasons. She might not understand the reasons, but she knew them.

Sherlock Holmes had no reason to jump, even if his reputation was in tatters. Sherlock Holmes did not put stock in that sort of thing. Nor would he stand for it. He was an arrogant know-it-all.

Sherlock Holmes would PROOVE to the world in the LOUDEST possible method he was in fact the real deal and Moriarty was real.

Falling off a roof did not do that.

So, why did he jump?


	3. It's Anything But Ordinary

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****as well as ****_The Sign of Four _****by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Richard Brook theory I found on tumblr, eva-christina.**

**Once again, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_It's Anything But Ordinary…_

A two months passed.

The sensational news story had not exactly died quietly.

Scotland Yard was in disgrace due to the fact they had "consulted" with the so called fraud Sherlock Holmes so often. The inquiry was still going on.

As was Mary's research. Her living room wall was plastered with any and all articles related to Sherlock Holmes or Richard Brook. After not looking at, glancing at, or reading news for four years, Mary now haunted the newsstand. She bought a printer just to print out the stories appearing online. The longer the story was dragged out, the more Mary learned.

Her initial research into Richard Brook online had been faulty. Upon digging deeper (and not at four in the morning after a stressful day) she found his roles, awards he'd won and she learned he was MIA, just like Kelia Kensington.

It was an obscure blog where she found the theory— a long essay that twisted and turned, yet had proof that Richard Brook was in fact Jim Moriarty, only Moriarty was the made up name, a character Richard Brook made up. He made up the character and hid behind it to run his crime rings.

_It is not unheard of popular actors to have duel identities_, the blogger wrote._ Kelia Kensginton, who has not been seen or heard from for almost five years now, is suspected to have formed a similar duel identity. Theories abound on who Kensington might actually be. _

The only reason she even finished the essay (wouldn't the author be disappointed to find out who she was boring Mary Morstan) was because the person believed in Sherlock and couldn't figure out why people didn't guess that Jim Moriarty was in fact Richard Brook.

How did no one recognize Richard Brook when he was on trial as Jim Moriarty? It was all over the press (and later cleared off the Internet, Mary found the stories at the library). Was it because he was in tailored suits and combed his hair? And wasn't wearing those horrid glasses he wore on the medical drama?

Hiding in plain sight. Jim Moriarty hid in plain sight for the world to see when he finally showed his face, the world failed to connect the two due to it's expensive, polished wrapping.

Throughout the trail, Moriarty/Brook simply stood there, smirk in place. Sherlock was the star witness and admitted he'd only spoken to the man for maybe five minutes. He did not really know Moriarty in person. He only knew him by reputation.

That played well for Moriary/Brook, as if the so called genius didn't know the Earth went around the Sun, then it was highly feasible he had no idea Richard Brook was on a popular medical drama a few years back.

After his character was killed off on the medical drama, work had dried up for Richard Brook. For the past two years, he'd been off the "radar." This was why her initial search in the wee hours of the morning had yielded so few results.

Clearly, being Jim Moriarty had taken over when the acting gigs dried up.

After solving the Moriarty/Brook riddle to her liking, she moved onto the story that ruined Sherlock Holmes. It rubbed Mary the wrong way for starters. Richard Brook had not been a childhood friend of Holmes. Mary doubted if the man had friends as a kid, if he had a similar temperament as a kid as he had as an adult. But, the stories…they had such a ring of truth.

Lies wrapped up in truth then. Mary had seen it before, a thousand times before. Her mother had the best talent around for wrapping up lies in truth and selling them to the highest bidder.

So, how had Brook gotten a hold of these truths? Moriarty clearly wanted to ruin Sherlock, yet…why would he think Sherlock honestly cared?

Sherlock didn't care. While he posed for the cameras, it was clear he would rather be elsewhere. He had an all too familiar look of distain in his eyes in every damn picture she had found of him.

The best way to ruin Sherlock Holmes would to simply kill him, shoot him, push him in front of a train, kick him off a bridge or something.

How had Moriarty/Brook convinced the guy to leap off a roof?

Sherlock was simply too full of himself to jump off a roof without major motivation. It wasn't…showy enough— as crass as that sounded. If someone like Sherlock Holmes— who lived to show off, who lived to work his brain, who lived to show up the next person would never fall off a roof as his final bow. And not with world doubting his mind.

The man's pride was wrapped up in his grey matter.

Something was _wrong_.

That was all Mary could really decide as she stared at the wall plastered with her "evidence." Something was just wrong with the whole thing and it sucked because she had hit a dead end.

That made Mary want to rip her hair out of her skull.

After she had put two months into following the story and researching the heck out of Richard Brook/Jim Moriarty, Mary sat back and wondered why she was doing it.

Why did she even care?

Richard Brook was MIA, vanished off the face of the Earth without a trace. Highly likely he faded into the background and resumed his life as Jim Moriarty, consulting criminal.

Sherlock was still dead. Figuring it out would not magically bring him to life.

Why did she care?

* * *

Getting the address off Sherlock Holmes' website, Mary had taken to traveling passed 221B Baker Street on a daily basis. Yes, it put her in danger of being a stalker, but she didn't harm any one or do anything creepy. She was simply trying to figure out her fixation on the whole sordid ordeal.

Was this how people who relentlessly followed celebrities felt? Kelia Kensington had had a few stalkers back in the day. They annoyed her, just like the paps annoyed her. She did not understand why people cared so much what shoes she wore to the grocery store, what she did to her hair or what she and Reid ate for breakfast.

Mary did not want to know what John was doing in the flat, or see the flat itself. She'd been doing stalker like passes for almost two weeks when she finally figured out why she kept walking passed: John Watson.

He was absent from the media whirlwind and absent from the police inquiry. It was almost as if she'd dreamed John Watson being connected to Sherlock Holmes, but she knew this wasn't the case. The news stories printed before the man's downfall featured a "Bachelor John Watson." People had been completely fixated with the relationship between the two men. Hell, people wrote romance stories about the two men.

It was sort of laughable. Two ordinary British citizens who simply happened to solve crimes together spurring a fan fiction movement.

Today, something felt different when she passed 221B Baker Street on her morning "walk." (That was how she justified her excessive wanders down Baker Street— she was going for her morning walk, for exercise.)

She stopped walking right across the street from the front door. The unassuming, basic door with a gold knocker and numbers. There was nothing different about the door today than any other day, but she stopped walking and stared at it.

She wanted to knock today. She wanted to see John and maybe end her need to walk down the street daily.

"I'm going. Go. Now," Mary hissed under her breath. "Your feet are moving."

Only they were not.

Mary sucked in another breath and stared across the street at the flat. She looked upwards. There was no movement in any of the windows above the door. Biting her lower lip, Mary finally put one foot in front of the other and crossed the street.

She stopped short of the door.

A two months after Reid had died, Mary had been a mess still and had lost herself in the jungles of Vietnam.

She ran away from the world. Would John have run away? Mary did not know him, but she had a feeling John Watson was not a runner.

Kelia Kensington was a runner. It took her a year to actually face up to the fact she blamed herself for Reid's death.

It was not her fault at all.

She needed help. She needed her friends. Someone, anyone.

Only she had no one.

Her family was also useless as no one wanted to deal with her after she turned her back on being Kelia Kensington. By the time she'd gotten back to civilization, her mother was attempting to have her declared dead so she could get her hand on the money Mary had squirreled away from her mother's sticky fingers.

All her former friends had written her off as a lost cause and moved onto the next best thing to come across their front stoops.

Knowing the state of John's phone, Mary was aware he had few friends and fewer people who were very close to him. His closest friend was dead and his other was currently battling with bureaucracy trying to safe his livelihood and reputation.

It was presumptuous for Mary to think she could help him, but maybe she could?

Maybe that was why she kept walking by the flat and wanted to see John?

What would she have done if a friendly face, granted not a very familiar one, had appeared at her front door and offered ears to listen? Or simply another human presence?

She would have welcomed it. After spending a few weeks insisting she was perfectly fine and did not need anyone.

Taking a deep breath, she rang the bell next to the door.

It felt like a lifetime before the door opened and an old woman's head poked out from behind the black painted door. The lines in the old woman's face looked as if they'd been there awhile, but there was a sadness in her eyes that aged her further. She appeared confused upon seeing Mary.

Running a hand through her shorter, darker hair, (after learning about Sherlock Holmes, she took his brother's suggestions to heart) Mary gave the older woman a smile.

"Hi," Mary started. "I'm, uh, looking for John?"

"John?" the old woman asked, eyeing Mary wearily.

"I'm not…er, I'm not a journalist or anything," Mary tried, figuring the door was often knocked upon by people wanting to question John. "I, well…er, I was just wondering how he was, uh, getting on. I ran into him…well, that day. He dropped his mobile. I picked it up and gave it to this DI…and, well, I lost someone in a similar manner….it was hard, but…Oh, never mind."

Mary felt frustrated and forgot even why she bothered in the first place.

She turned to leave. She was a right nutter. She had no business butting her nose into John's business.

What was wrong with her?

"Wait."

Mary paused, turning back around to find the door was opened fully. The old woman stepped aside, making it clear she was inviting Mary inside.

"Come in here, deary," she ordered when Mary made no move to enter.

Without needing to think for long, Mary stepped inside.

The old woman introduced herself as Mrs Hudson, the landlady for the building. Mary introduced herself and waited for a moment, wondering why the woman had invited her inside.

"We'll go to my flat for some tea," she said, heading off down the hall. "And just talk for a bit."

Feeling somewhat confused, Mary followed Mrs Hudson into her flat on the ground floor. Soon, Mary found herself plied with a cup of tea.

"So, how do you know John?"

"Well, uh, I just happened to be somewhere, er, at the wrong…or right time, depending on how you look at it," Mary said, stumbling around her words. She debated on a moment admitting she'd known _of_ John since she was eight, but kept her mouth shut.

She should have written herself a script for today. She was never good at ab-libbing. Hence why she never took up the offer to host _Saturday Night Live_. Live on the spot cover ups were never something she was excelled at. She'd seen enough almost ruined skits to know she would fail at life spectacularly if she were on the show. Or any live show for that matter.

"You were there that day?" Mrs Hudson quietly asked.

Mary nodded, staring down into her cup of tea. Using the tip of her polished chipped fingernail, she turned the cup in circles by the handle on saucer.

"You stayed with John, then?"

"Till DI Lestrade and Mr Holmes showed up and they…" Mary trailed off. "Went somewhere together."

Silence draped around the two women. Mary went back to moving her cup in slow circles with her fingernail. She almost wanted to laugh loudly at the varnish on her nails. Sophie, the child she tutored, had painted them in exchange for going through her French verbs. The remaining bits of polish were a ridiculous shade of green.

"You've lost someone in a similar manner?"

Mary slowly raised her eyes off her tea cup. "My husband."

"You're too young to have been married and widowed," the woman said softly, putting a soft, wrinkled hand over Mary's younger one.

"I'm almost thirty," Mary grumbled.

"Oh, pish posh," Mrs Hudson said. They were quiet as Mrs Hudson took a few more sips of tea and Mary pushed her cup around. "I take it you didn't know Sherlock?"

"No. I'd just moved to London and hadn't been following anything current," Mary assured her. "I don't understand Twitter."

"You've learned since then? About Sherlock," Mrs Hudson clarified.

"Yeah."

"And?"

Mary glanced up from where she'd been staring into her tea cup to find critical eyes studying her. Mrs Hudson was giving her some sort of test. More than likely to see if she was a crazy mad hatter or simply a concerned citizen checking up on John.

Whatever the reason, Mary wanted to pass the test.

"I think I safely fall into the I Believe in Sherlock side of things," Mary admitted.

Mrs Hudson hummed and began to tell Mary a few stories about "her boys" as she referred to Sherlock and John. The two talked rather easily for almost two hours till it was high time for Mary to be on her way. She left 221 Baker Street with an invitation to return for another cup of tea with Mrs Hudson.

She'd not seen John, nor had Mrs Hudson offered John's whereabouts. That in itself told Mary a lot.

* * *

Mary found the grave.

She wasn't looking for Sherlock's grave. She thought the whole visiting people's graves was sort of ridiculous. While she did understand how people would want to have somewhere their loved ones rested in peace and they could "visit" with them, eighty-five percent of the time, no one ever visited the graves of these loved ones after the earth settled.

Reid had been cremated. He lived in a jar that was safely locked away in a glass cabinet in his mother's living room. Well, when she wasn't carrying the jar around with her.

Mary didn't want to be put in a box and stuck six feet under a headstone after she was gone, but she did want a headstone. She liked headstones. They were frozen moments in history, allowing brief glimpses into the lives of the deceased. It was a person last imprint on the world, the parting shot for the world as it spun and kept moving forward in time. It was a last ditch effort to be known.

So, Mary walked through graveyards. She toured cemeteries. She paused and read headstones. She even photographed them occasionally. There was a quiet beauty to cemeteries and graveyards. Being there calmed her down. It allowed her to think straight and not wallow in whatever mess she happened to find herself in. Her attention was focused, be it on taking a photograph or storing away tiny bits of history that would likely be forgotten by in a few generations.

Her mother thought she was off her rocker. Reid told her she was weird.

"You don't know these people. Why bother?" he'd sneered at her the one time he'd gone with her to Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills. "They're nobody."

He'd never asked to go with her again when she went "morbid."

Her hobby of wandering around graveyards had led her to find the tombstone of Sherlock Holmes. There were quite a few cemeteries in London, but there was one she loved most on the outskirts of London. When you were inside it, it was like you weren't actually in London. The city noise and smells trailed off and it was almost as if you'd been transported to the countryside.

It was her favorite cemetery and she traveled there often since returning to London. Her mind was quiet for once. She felt calm, collected and at ease in the drizzly afternoon.

Till she saw the headstone. Then she felt like she'd been punched in the gut.

Mary stopped walking on the paved road and marched across the grass towards the headstone sitting alone under a tree. It was shiny, black and brand new. And all it said was SHERLOCK HOLMES.

No dates.

No quote.

No proclamation of greatness.

Just his name. Not even his full name, just first and last name.

And he was alone. There were no other family headstones around him. There were no headstone period nearby.

Mary stood staring at the out of place looking headstone. It was clear the grave was visited, as there were fresh flowers lying at the base.

There was no vase. Most graves, unless they were very old, had vases either in the headstones or in the ground for the flowers and what not. She rounded the headstone several times before coming to a conclusion: Sherlock Holmes was not dead.

It was insane and almost impossible that he was in fact alive and not under her feet at the moment, but something was very wrong with this grave. Thus, only conclusion: he was alive.

Sherlock Holmes had a family and he had friends. His creepy older brother likely arranged the funeral and for the headstone to be made. He was clearly rich, hence the quick appearance of a headstone.

And yet….

A man like Mr Holmes would put his brother's birthdate and death date on the headstone along with either a middle initial or the full middle name. It was traditional. And if anything, that man enjoyed traditions.

If his brother, that creepy government worker, hadn't had a hand in planning this headstone, then it'd be up to John.

John would have put the dates and a statement of greatness. Or something along the lines of him being a great man. Something sentimental.

Sherlock Holmes was not dead.

Mary stumbled backwards and landed on her rear in the wet, muddy grass. Her eyes refused to move from the reflective, highly polished black surface. Her body refused to move from where it had fallen.

Sherlock Holmes was not dead.

He had jumped from the roof of St. Bart's, fallen four stories and landed with a thud on the ground, but he was not dead. There had been blood and vacant blue-green-grey eyes, but he was not dead.

Somehow, Mary scrambled to her feet and hightailed it out of her favorite cemetery. She changed gears as she ran. Once she was home, she moved to another wall in the flat and began tracing the Holmes family.

She had to be sure Sherlock had not been simply placed somewhere else.

Mary traveled to the various graveyards and cemeteries throughout England that contained Holmeses till she finally found the right one.

Her assumption the family Sherlock came from was traditional had been correct. They had a family burial plot. It was out in the country, surrounded by lush green lawns. It was posh, tasteful and very traditional.

She found Sherlocks, she found Sherringfords, she even found a few named Mycroft, but all the graves had birth dates that did not match up with the thirty something Sherlock Holmes who'd swan dived off the roof.

Sherlock Holmes lacked a grave.

* * *

"Ms Morstan."

Mary paused on the front stairs of the Forrester's house. There was a black car sitting in front of the house, a quickly texting woman leaning against the car. She was dressed in all black— clearly expensive black.

"If you'll come with me, please," the woman said, opening the car door.

"No."

The woman paused for a moment before shrugging and texting some more. Mary turned to head into the house when her mobile beeped once.

Someone sent her a text message?

Pulling out the phone slowly, she read the message.

_Please get in the car, Ms Kensington. -MH_

MH? Mr Holmes, Sherlock's sinister brother who worked for the government?

Gulping, she looked over her shoulder. The woman made another motion for Mary to get into the car. Deleting the text message, Mary contemplated of making a break for it, but figured it was pointless. Sherlock's brother did not hold a minor position in the British Government. Whatever he did, he was powerful and he'd hunt her down if it was the last thing he did.

So, she got into the backseat and shuddered as the woman slammed the door. The car pulled away from the curb and began to wind through the streets of Kensington, heading out of town.

"Uh, where are we going?" Mary called to the front seat where she could hear the woman texting.

"You're to meet Mr Holmes," the woman said.

"Where?"

There was no answer. Mary sat back in the backseat and wrapped her arms around herself. The car got onto the highway and headed out of London. They got off and began to wind their way through an industrial park. The car stopped after it pulled into one of the warehouses. The back door opened and Mary took that as a sign she was to exit the car.

Slowly, she got out and looked around.

It looked like a spot the mafia brought people to shoot them in the head.

"Ms Kensington," greeted that cold, posh voice she remembered from the hospital.

Sherlock Holmes' brother was standing about twenty feet away, leaning on his umbrella clearly waiting for her. There was a chair in front of him. He indicated to her she ought to sit in the chair. While she would rather stand, she trudged over to the chair and sat down, wrapping her arms around her body in an effort to keep herself warm. She forgot her coat in her flat in her rush to get to the Forrester's.

Mr Holmes did not say a word for a long while, simply stared her down with his ice blue eyes. Mary shifted a little, digging her nails into her sides.

"Are you cold?"

"No."

"I believe you are."

The man straightened and waved his hand. Mary heard the click of heels behind her and felt something warm fall over her shoulders. It smelled faintly of expensive perfume and was quite soft. The heels clicked back towards the car.

"Better?"

Mary shrugged.

The man heaved a long suffering sigh.

"Ms Kensington, what is your interest in Sherlock Holmes?" he asked, nailing her with a chilly look.

"What?"

The man narrowed his gaze. "I know you've been visiting various graves of Holmeses all over England. And it all started the day after you found Sherlock's headstone."

Without realizing it, Mary pulled the wrap closer to her to ward off the ice the man was shooting at her.

"I…I was curious," Mary squeaked. "I…"

Mary scrambled around her mind for something to tell him without admitting she was obsessed with figuring out what had actually happened. Or the fact she shared the views with several bloggers who most people thought were two cards short of a full deck.

"You refuse to take anything at face value, correct?," the man inquired. "As someone who is currently hiding, why would you become interested in something that would surely drag you into the limelight?"

Mary frowned, knitting her eyebrows together.

"I just…he…it…."

She trailed off, staring at the taller man in front of her as he continued to drill his gaze into her skull. His impassive look was what really pushed her over the edge. Months of frustration, confusion, and angst burst out of her suddenly, aimed for the man in front of her.

"It doesn't make sense!" Mary yelled, balling up her fists and standing. The wrap fell in a heap at her feet. "He wouldn't kill himself no matter what people said about him! He didn't just swan off into nothingness, fall off the face of the earth, he jumped off a bloody building in front of his best friend! After he was exposed as a fake! He is too arrogant, too pig headed, too stubborn and too bloody brilliant to just off himself and not go to great lengths to prove he's not a fake! He'd want to prove them all WRONG! It makes no sense! And that headstone! That headstone…"

She was out of breath and had to curtail her rant. Mr Holmes regarded her for a moment through passive eyes.

"You're right," he announced.

"I am?"

"The whole incident make no sense if you really know him," the man admitted. He shifted his umbrella and swung it upwards till it landed on his shoulder. "But, you did not know him. Not like Doctor Watson or Detective Inspector Lestrade. Or even Mrs Hudson."

"And none of them have questioned it?"

"No," the man stated with finality. "It seems you are the only one to look at Sherlock's headstone and come to this conclusion, Ms Kensington."

"How—how did you even know…that I think he's not dead? I just said it didn't make sense that he killed himself because he was a fake."

"It is in your face."

"How did you do that?"

"Do what, Ms Kensington?"

"Speak in a different voice and not move your lips. You're a ventriloquist on the side?" Mary inquired jokingly.

A dervish snort came from the shadows.

"I'm afraid not," Mr Holmes sighed deeply, glaring in the direction the snort had come from.

"Your girl Friday suddenly decided to become a man?" Mary ventured, her voice betraying her slight fear.

"I resent that."

And Sherlock Holmes stepped into the light.


	4. Shock Blanket Needed

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_Shock Blanket Needed…_

Mary sat down.

Hard.

If all her focus wasn't on the fact Sherlock Holmes had just materialized out of the darkness, she might have been amazed she'd managed to land on the chair rather than the ground. As it was, she was too busy gawking at Sherlock Holmes.

While he did not look like any photograph she'd seen of him or the fallen body she'd had carted passed her, she knew it was Sherlock Holmes. His hair might be gingery-blonde and straight and he might be dressed exactly like his brother, but there was no way anyone else could have his facial structure and not be a Sherlock. The man standing next to Mr Holmes had the trademark cheekbones and the exaggerated cupid's bow.

She looked at the other Holmes and back again. The two men did not look all that related. One was pointy and the other…not so much.

But, they were dressed similar: over coat, three piece suit and ties. Somehow this made them look like brothers.

Mary raised her hand to her mouth as it settled in her mind that she was indeed faced with the Sherlock Holmes— the formerly dead Sherlock Holmes.

"The last time I saw you, you were dead," she whispered behind her hand. Her eyes trailed up to his gingery-blonde hair hung across his forehead. "Your hair was saturated with blood."

Sherlock smirked, enjoying her reaction while the other one appeared mildly annoyed. Sherlock wasn't supposed to show himself, but of course he couldn't just stand there lurking in the dark. His brother ought to have realized this.

Mary lowered her hand.

"Why?"

"Why what, Ms Kensington?" Mr Holmes inquired, giving her a pointed look.

"I'm no one."

Mr Holmes gave her a tight, almost pitting smile. "Everybody is somebody."

"Uh, no. You're nobody if you don't have at least a million friends on Facebook, a Twitter account with a million followers or a section of the Internet dedicated to fan fiction stories about a fictional romance."

Sherlock let out a snort, taking a few steps away from his brother and closer to Mary.

"You are someone," he said quietly. "You have chosen to be a nobody."

He closed the remaining space between them, sticking his nose into her face. Mary got an up close and personal view of his odd blue-gray-green eyes.

"You're not enough of an idiot to be content as no one," Sherlock whispered.

Mary stared into those eyes, remembering the last time she'd seen them they'd been vacant and empty. Those eyes had been the unseeing eyes of a dead man. Those same eyes were now alive, blazing and filled with brilliance. They darted all over, taking in everything, informing Sherlock of her entire life story, what she was feeling, where she'd been and more than likely what she'd eaten for breakfast.

Sherlock straightened up and put his hands behind his back.

"You were there," he stated blandly. "You hair. It was different. Longer, lighter. You weighed about a stone more."

Mary sat up and looked down at herself. "I lost a stone?"

"Five pounds, Sherlock," corrected Mr Holmes from behind his brother.

"You were the one who brought John inside," Sherlock went on, ignoring his brother.

"Er, yeah. That's how I got mixed up in this…thing," Mary said, waving her hand around in front of her. "I…I guess I don't know when to just leave it be."

She sagged. An ominous feeling settled over her as she eyed Sherlock, who was still studying her, deducing random things about her.

Maybe she was right when she thought this was a place for mob hits? She figured out the secret, time to make her irrelevant. To decommission her. Exerminate. Delete.

Maybe they'd assimilate her into their collective?

Mary let out a rather shaky laugh at imagining the two Holmes men as part of the Borg. She glanced away from the pair and stared off blankly to the side.

"You'd never let something like this be," Sherlock quietly stated in a matter of fact manner. Mary turned her attention back to him. "I presented a wonderful mystery for you to solve. Once you solved it, you could explain it to John in a nice, uncomplicated manner. Make sense of a tragedy, correct?"

Mary frowned. "No. It just didn't make sense! You fell off the bloody roof of St. Bart's! Why?"

Sherlock did not answer, just stared at her.

Mary crossed her arms across her chest and huffed.

"Fine. Don't tell me. No doubt I'll drive myself to the brink of madness trying to figure it out on my own," Mary pouted.

"No. You won't," Sherlock replied. "I had to fall. To finish the story Richard Brook set up for us to tell."

Mary knitted her eyebrows together, studying Sherlock. He was still standing ram rod straight with his hands behind his back in front of her, looking down. There was tension in his shoulders and in between his eyes. He was attempting to wear a look of nonchalance, but it bothered him.

He missed his friends. He was tired of hiding in the dark. He wanted to come into the light.

"Okay. So the story ended. Sherlock died, Brook vanished into the underworld?" Mary tried.

Sherlock shook his head, the fringe over his forehead flying a bit. A little bit of the tension loosened as he swayed towards her a little, a little light appearing in his grey-green eyes.

He wanted her to figure it out on her own. And it excited him because he knew she might do it.

Mary bit her bottom lip and stared at the man looming above her hard.

"Brook's dead," she tried. A quirk of a gingery eyebrow told her she was right. She leaned up and forward till her nose almost touched his. "Why?"

Sherlock's eyes gleamed with excitement, but he did not speak. His eyes continued to dart back and forth, taking in various aspects of her face.

"Why? Why? Why?" Mary grumbled, sitting back and raking a hand through her hair. "It's all I ask. Fine. No. Don't tell me."

She recrossed her arms across her chest and stared at the ground, taking in the yellowish puddles doting the floor.

"Instead of shedding the identity of Brook and swanning off into the underworld, he killed himself. Clearly in front of you."

Sherlock jolted a little.

"So, he was holding something over your head and you'd figured out how to…prevent it from happening…without…"

Mary twisted her lips not liking where her mind was going. Moriarty was a deviant, depraved man. That much was clear from The Great Game entry she'd read on John's blog. He got off on watching Sherlock scramble.

"He was your equal," Mary realized, looking up at Sherlock. He nodded his agreement. "The…why?…no, wait, don't tell me."

She went back to looking at the ground. She sorted through all she knew about Moriroty/Brook. She went over the events that occurred prior to Sherlock diving off a building.

"He wanted you to jump. He more than likely had hostages, lives you…valued over your own. You made a point of not caring, not being emotionally involved in your work," Mary muttered, more to herself than to Sherlock. "So, the people would have to have been important."

"I told you," Sherlock threw over his shoulder at his brother.

"Sherlock," his brother sighed deeply.

"Okay, so you jumped to save people. Sherlock Holmes, why do you seem to believe it is important for me to figure this out?"

Sherlock studied her carefully, eyes dancing all over her.

"Your given name is Kelia Islay Kensington. You were born in London on the 26th of September 1981. You began acting when you were four in commercials and theater, mostly local. You are very talented, yet are seen by most people in the industry as plain. So your mother made you not plain, as she didn't have faith you could get by on talent alone. Between that and your mother's inability to keep a steady, healthy relationship, you've never had a very good relationship with her. You became emancipated when you were sixteen and moved to London, taking your career into your own hands. Shortly after you moved to London, you gained a role on television, which led to your Oscar award winning role and you moved to Los Angeles. You hated LA, but stayed because you met Reid Price and married. The marriage ended with his death, which still haunts you. Because he died in a similar manner to myself, you became fixated on figuring out why I jumped because you will never really understand why he jumped due to his personality and brain chemistry.

"In knowing more about myself and my own personality, you correctly assumed I had been acting out of character the morning I fell to my death after calling John. You believed if you figured everything out, you'd save John from what you've gone through."

"Sentimental," Mr Holmes intoned from behind Sherlock.

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'm so glad you've figured it out for me," Mary sarcastically said. "I was beginning to worry I was simply mad. You still didn't answer my question."

"You are mad," Sherlock offered. "But, you're not a total idiot. You don't see the world as other people do and your mind is loud."

A new light appeared in Sherlock's eyes. Mary shifted in the chair, looking around for the wrap that had fallen. Upon spotting it on the ground, she wrapped it back around her like a blanket.

"Shock blanket," Sherlock suddenly said, snapping his head all over the place. "Did no one think to bring a shock blanket?"

"Sherlock," Mr Holmes groaned and then heaved a great annoyed sounding sigh.

Sherlock huffed and turned to look down at Mary.

"Once again, Sherlock Holmes, I will ask: why?"

"Why what?"

Mary sighed in a similar manner to how Mr Holmes had been sighing since his brother had jumped out of the shadows.

"Why are you choosing to tell me I'm right? Choosing to allow me to know you're so not dead?"

"Oh, that."

"Security risk," Mr Holmes intoned. Sherlock flopped his hand at his brother over his shoulder.

"What about those bloggers online who are publishing their theories?" Mary asked, leaning around Sherlock to look at his brother. "They were the ones who gave me an inkling that Brook was in fact Moriarty. I just drew my own conclusions from there."

"They've got it all wrong," Sherlock scoffed. "Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

The word rung around the mostly empty warehouse. Sherlock turned on his heel and began pacing.

"There are holes in all their theories that don't even touch on the matter that I'm possibly alive. Yes, they touch on the fact that Richard Brook was Jim Moriarty, but no one has any solid, truthful or feasible theories on the fact I am alive."

"You're telling me I'm the only person to see your grave and find it weird?"

Sherlock stopped pacing.

"Yes," Mr Holmes simply answered. "You are the only person to turn up at the Holmes Family plot in almost ten years."

And there was her mistake. She should have left that alone after she guessed Sherlock was alive. If she'd remained out of that graveyard, she'd not be sitting in this warehouse with a creepy government worker and a dead consulting detective— who was also somewhat creepy.

"What was it, really, though? What really tipped you off that the marker wasn't legitimate?" Sherlock asked, craning his neck out as he stalked towards her.

"The fact all it said was your name. No dates, no middle name, no saying, no last words," Mary offered, pressing herself to the chair as Sherlock stuck his face back in hers. "Then put that with the fact you're all by your lonesome under a tree…and he's your brother."

Mary gestured with her hand at Mr Holmes.

"What about him?" Sherlock challenged.

"Hello. He screams traditional," she pointed out. "He is so screamingly British. There is a reason we've not changed over to the Euro, even though we belong to the EU. Also, who carries an umbrella? Who doesn't text in this day and age? Give the man a bowler hat and he'd be the image of a proper British gentleman."

Sherlock looked impressed.

"How? The thumbs, of course," Sherlock said, throwing his hands up in the air.

"And the shorter nail on his index finger," Mary offered, knowing out of all that Sherlock had focused on the fact his brother didn't like to text. "Right hand."

"Of course!"

"Sherlock," Mr Holmes scolded.

"Fine," Sherlock pouted. He turned around and stalked back over to Mary. He put his hands behind his back and stared down at her. "I want your help."

"Excuse me? Me? Why do you want my help? I'm ordinary! I'm…"

"A college educated woman with a bachelors of science in maths from the University of Otago," Sherlock rattled off. "Awarded in December, if I remember correctly."

"Completed in just under three years," Mr Holmes intoned from behind Sherlock.

"Okay, so I can do maths," Mary muttered. "How does that help you unless you need me to solve some sort of algebra problem?"

"I need your deductive skills, Ms Morstan," Sherlock announced while Mycroft sighed from behind him.

"My what?"

"You observe rather than see," Sherlock stated, his eyes wide.

He looked like a predatory animal about to pounce. Mary pulled the wrap around her tighter.

"I also need your flat."

Mary blinked. "My flat?"

Mr Holmes sighed again. It was a long suffering sigh of a man who had an insufferable brother.

"Yes. I cannot get my own flat— I am dead," Sherlock said loudly over whatever his brother was attempting to say.

"Why? Can't you stay with your brother?"

Sherlock looked insulted. Mary put her hands up in defeat.

"Only you and one other, besides my brother, knows I'm alive. However, in order not to disrupt and inconvenience Molly, I will need your flat."

"I have a feeling I don't really have a choice in the matter," she muttered.

"You do. It'd just be practical for you to agree," Sherlock proclaimed. "I would not be living there, I would only be dropping by with information for you to get to the right people at the right moment."

"Er, okay. Why?"

Mary was beginning to feel 'why' was her new favorite word.

"Ms Kensington, I believe we can trust you," Mr Holmes said, walking up to stand beside his brother to loom over her as well. "You've kept quiet about all you've discovered and gone about your investigation quietly. You have not drawn any attention to yourself, despite your findings. Sherlock needs a contact in London, and due to…our strained relationship, he chose to involve you instead of using myself and my own contacts. He is rather stubborn."

Sherlock pouted and huffed in exasperation.

"Go away, Mycroft," Sherlock said, glaring at his brother.

Mr Holmes, also known as Mycroft Holmes, sighed his long suffering my brother is a pain in the ass sigh and ambled backwards to where he'd been standing before. Sherlock turned his attention to Mary.

"I don't like using his…resources unless I must," he hissed, leaning down to stick his nose in her face again. "I chose you because you're not a total idiot. You've managed to completely hide yourself from the world and you were famous. Very famous. Even _I_ knew who you were. I didn't delete it because I couldn't find you."

Mary blinked. "Huh? You— you were looking for me?"

"Famous celebrity vanishes without a trace? Of course I was looking for you," Sherlock scoffed.

"Sherlock, people go missing everyday. Ordinary, average people," Mary said quietly. "Do you look for them as well?"

"If they vanish mysteriously," Sherlock admitted. "If it is not boring, I look into it. You weren't boring. No one could find you, trace you or figure out where you had gotten to all because you managed to change your name at sixteen."

His eyes were glowing again. He was smug and proud of himself.

Sherlock Holmes was an arrogant prat.

He was also right and had been the very first person to EVER know that.

"You changed your legal name to Mary Morstan at sixteen when you emancipated yourself, but you kept it well hidden through the lawyer you used— who tragically owed Mycroft a favor."

Mary stared at Sherlock with large eyes.

"Clever, really. It was as if you knew you'd need to disappear," Sherlock whispered. "Morstan is after your father. He was a captain in the army, killed in action during the Gulf War in 1991. Mary…that was harder to figure out. Such a common, plain name. Especially compared to Kelia Islay Kensington."

The way her old name rolled off Sherlock's tongue sent shivers down her spine. The way it formed on his lips made ice form in her veins.

She hated that name.

"Plain Mary Morstan," Sherlock cooed. "That was why you picked it, was it not? Because you see yourself as plain and ordinary?"

Mary dragged her eyes away from Sherlock's mouth to meet his eyes.

"Oh, you're a clever boy, aren't you?" Mary dryly retorted. "Figured me out. I'm plain and ordinary so I chose a plain, ordinary name that reflected my self image. Never mind it was the name of one of my favorite artists."

"Mary Cassatt?"

"No."

Sherlock frowned, bringing his hands out from behind his back and pressing them together and placing them under his chin.

"Mary Blair, Sherlock. It was in her name the whole time," Mycroft drawled from behind.

Sherlock looked confused, but Mary rolled her eyes.

"Mary Blair Morstan," Mycroft and Mary said together.

Sherlock glowered and pouted like a toddler.

"So, Mr Smarty Pants, now that we've figured me out, we going to figure you out?"

Sherlock looked confused.

"I wanna know why you fell down and went boom," Mary flatly asked.

"That's what you want to know? Why I faked my death not how? I told you why I had to die. Are you sure you do not know the how?"

"I don't care how you did it. It's been bugging me _why_. I get that Brook had something on you and you jumped for to save people you cared about, but how did you get to that point," Mary clarified. "You went out letting everyone think you're a fake, a shame, not a proper genius. Anyone who knows you, knows you'd never kill yourself for that. Why did you go out letting them all think you're a fake?"

"To save my friends, as I stated before," Sherlock reminded her, lowering his hands from under his chin. "Brook shot himself in the head when he learned I figured out there was a recall for the snipers that were all in place to shoot my friends if I did not jump."

Mary gasped, putting her hand back over her mouth.

"Three snipers, three bullets and no recall after Brook shot himself."

"So, you had to jump."

"I had to jump as planned," Sherlock stated. "I knew his story ended with the both of us dead, myself more so than he."

"And you remain dead?"

"I must remain dead till I infiltrate his network and assure it's been dealt with."

"Okay, so you planned to fall, planned to allow the world to think you're a moron and let your friends all wallow in misery," Mary rattled off. "Ah, yes. Makes total sense now."

Sherlock glowered at her while Mycroft cleared his throat loudly.

"Sherlock, I do not have all day," he reminded the younger man.

Sherlock pressed his lips together and scowled unattractively.

"Just one more thing: why'd you meet him on the roof in the first place?"

Sherlock cocked his head to the side. "Because that was where I had planned to fall, as he had promised to burn me, to burn the heart out of me. And he had promised me a fall, so I chose a roof to fall from. He told me I was going to die the first time I met him. So, I realized his game and made the proper preparations."

Mary frowned. "Okay…one more thing. The whole…trial. Moriarty breaking into the Bank of England, the prison and stealing the crown jewels— what was the purpose of that?"

"To show off," Sherlock spat. "To set me up to further fall. He brought himself into the public eye, then later accused me of hiring him to do all that."

"How'd he do it?"

"Paying people off to turn a blind eye."

"Not a computer program?"

"No."

"You knew that?"

"Yes," Sherlock stated. "Any more questions?"

He sounded rather annoyed she was questioning him in the first place. Figuring he'd get tetchy and she might just wind up dead in the warehouse, she sighed and turned away from Sherlock. She was still full of questions and wondering why and how, but let it slide.

She'd figure it out in time.

"Nope. All questioned out for the time being. So, you want to use my flat to drop off information that I'm going to magically know what to do with," Mary recapped.

"You'll know what to do. You're not an stupid," Sherlock restated.

"I honestly am," she tried to argue.

"I've seen your essays," he taunted, referring to the mathematical essays she'd written before graduation. "And I've watched you deduce."

He got the glint in his eye again, that unsettling shine that put Mary on edge.

"Jolly good," she said, her voice a little high.

Sherlock was once again invading her personal space, so she tipped the chair back till her feet flew off the ground and hit Sherlock square in the chest. Because he wasn't expecting it, he went flying backwards as Mary flipped herself over the chair. She didn't land on her feet as she had planned, but rather on her back on the cold, hard ground.

"I knew you were trouble," she muttered to herself, rolling over onto her stomach. "I should have just kept walking. I should have just gone the other way, waited to get off another stop…"

"Or you could not tip the chair over," Sherlock suggested.

By the time Mary had gotten to her feet, cursing the stunt coordinator who'd taught her that trick, Sherlock had straightened himself out. He readjusted the large collar on his trench coat, popping it up in the back. It didn't have the same effect as the greatcoat he had worn before, but it was still impressive the way it made the man ooze cool.

Utterly unfair.

"Till next time," Sherlock said, winking and vanishing off into the shadows leaving Mary alone with Mycroft Holmes, the sinister government agent.

Said man gave his now trade marked sigh and turned towards Mary.

"I take it you will cooperate, Ms Kensington?"

"Sure. If you stop calling me that," Mary bit out.

"Whatever you say, Ms Morstan," Mycroft Holmes said, extending his head towards her. "I'll be in touch. I'm also sure Sherlock will be in touch sooner. Do keep him safe and not allow him to do something utterly stupid."

"What?" Mary asked. "How am I supposed to do that if he's just dropping stuff off?"

The man gave her a smile that spoke of hard times ahead for her and turned around. He waved his umbrella at her back and forth as he walked away.

"You've picked your side, Ms Morstan," he said in an almost sing song voice.

"I'm to take you home," a voice said from behind Mary the moment the darkness ate Mycroft Holmes.

"Sure. Sure, whatever," Mary mumbled, turning around to find the texting woman, who— gasp— was texting.

Mary slid into the backseat and stared blankly out the window as the car left the warehouse and headed back to London. The sun had set and the city was beginning to shine in an artificial glow. Mary rested her head on the cold window and pondered what she had gotten herself into due to her unwavering curiosity over something she had no right to wonder about.


	5. Home

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_Home…_

Residual pain in her back was the only evidence Mary had the next morning that yesterday's kidnapping had actually taken place. She felt like one gigantic bruise as she rolled over and attempted to get out of bed. It took her longer than usual to make it through her usual morning routine because it was bothersome to move. She needed a rather large dose of pain pills if she wanted to feel anything remotely human.

"Mental note, do not do stunts without a stunt coordinator or a mat. Your life is not a movie, Mary," she muttered herself as she hobbled into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and rummaged through cabinets and drawers till she found the ibuprofen. After taking one more than the directions suggested with a large glass of milk, she sunk down on a stool at the breakfast bar and examined the lounge behind her.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

A noise akin to a fire alarm altered her it'd been at least two minutes and the kettle was boiled. It was high time to get tea into her system. Shuffling into the kitchen she opened the cabinet and stared upwards for some reason. Her jaw dropped to the ground.

There was a mug in her cabinet that did not belong in there. It was a touristy kind of mug, not one any native would buy for themselves unless they had an odd sense of humor. It was the only mug on the shelf, as it was out of Mary's natural reach. In order to reach it to get it down, Mary would need a stool.

Only one person came to mind who could easily reach that shelf.

Crawling up onto the counter, as she didn't think she could stretch to reach in her current condition, Mary took the mug into her hands. Holding the rather heavy mug, she turned it over, looking for clues or anything to tell her why it was in her cabinet. All she found was a price tag on the bottom.

He hadn't washed it, so he hadn't planned to use it any time soon.

Why had he broken into her flat in the dead of night to leave a London mug?

Why wasn't she more upset that Sherlock Holmes had broken into her flat?

Mary slid off the counter and set the mug on the counter, grabbed her usual tea mug and made her cup of tea. By the time she'd finished fixing breakfast, the ibuprofen kicked in and she could finally easily move around without wanting to crawl into a ditch and die.

Her days as an action hero were defiantly over.

Sitting at the bar again, she stared into the kitchen this time. She eyeballed the mug as she spooned the eggs into her mouth and could not fathom why Sherlock Holmes left her a bloody mug.

Was he trying to tell her something? She had a feeling the man did not behave randomly, did not do things without an exact reason behind his actions. The mug was clearly new. He had taken the trouble to pick her lock, sneak in and leave it behind.

WHY?

After she was finished eating, she washed her dishes and debated on washing the mug. Sherlock had left it on a shelf Mary clearly did not use due to the fact it was out of easy reach. She didn't have much in way of dish ware to begin with and she hated to cook, so many of the cabinets were lacking things on the top shelves.

No doubt the bugger noticed that.

Picking the mug up, she studied it closely, taking it everything. It was rather plain for a tourist mug now that she really looked at it. A silhouette of the London skyline wrapped around the outside in blue on a white background. LONDON was written in red.

Patriotic mug.

Simple.

To the point.

It was something she'd buy if she was going away from London for a great length of time. She loved the city of London.

And this mug was better than the Starbucks one she'd gotten at Heathrow that simply said LONDON in huge, black letters. She'd picked it up on a layover to Prague when she was eighteen. She missed London like she missed breathing non-smog filled air.

The mug was the only thing she took with her when she'd fallen off the face of the Earth.

Oh.

Sherlock loved London.

Mary loved London.

It was highly likely that this had been his first time being back in the city since he'd, well, died.

Oh, they made a pair.

Mary thrust the mug into the soapy water and scrubbed the price tag off and then dried the mug. Crawling onto the worktop, she put the mug back on the shelf Sherlock had placed it on, only she put it further back where he would easily spot it, but she would be unable to see it. Smiling, she lightly leapt off the worktop, forgetting for the moment she was a huge gigantic bruise.

* * *

Sherlock did not drop by her flat again for six weeks. During that six weeks Mary went about her usual life. She had tea with Mrs Hudson six times and never saw John. Mrs Hudson never offered John's whereabouts. Nor did Mary inquired about where John might be. Mary got the feeling while Mrs Hudson had a whole heap of old lady friends, none of them wanted to really hear about "her boys." In her grief, Mrs Hudson had become lonely and for some odd reason that Mary did not care to understand, Mrs Hudson had chosen Mary to be the ears for her stories.

Mary wanted to blurt out quite a few times that Sherlock was indeed alive (and quite well), but it occurred to Mary that one, it wasn't her secret to share and two, Sherlock might for all she know have gone and gotten himself killed doing whatever he was doing. From what Mary read on John's blog and what Mrs Hudson told her about Sherlock, he was usually only a few steps away from an early end due to his need to follow criminals around ruining their lives.

Criminals didn't like Sherlock too well.

It was during the sixth week that Mary made a choice that caused a chain reaction of change to occur in her somewhat tidy world.

She did not think much about the choice when she made it, as it was one of those mundane choices people make on a daily basis without much forethought passed: _I need chocolate._

Mary needed chocolate— stat.

Sophie Forrester, an eight year old who did not want to be learning French after school, had been worst than usual in her temper tantrum. It ended with Mary's white blouse stained with bright orange nail polish. (Sophie had a fixation with unnaturally bright and ugly nail polish colors.)

Mrs Forrester had apologized and offered to dry clean the blouse, but Mary declined, as taking her shirt off meant she'd have to remain longer in the house in Kensington and all Mary wanted to do was run to her tiny, dark, basement flat in Hackney and gorge herself on chocolate.

Only, she lacked chocolate. She lacked anything other than eggs, milk, and tea.

A trip to the shops was in order.

It was a rather long Tube ride from the Forrester house in Kensington to her own home, so Mary chose to head to the high street to go to Marks and Spencer for a quick chocolate fix before getting the Tube. She was poking around the candy section when she felt eyes. Straightening, she looked around and jerked with surprise to find there was someone standing next to her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I feel like I've seen you somewhere, but can't place you."

Mary stared at the man, blinking.

"I-I-I-I…you only saw me once, Detective Inspector Lestrade," Mary stammered.

"Ah, but you remember me," he joked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Who are you? It's killing me. I'm usually good with names and faces."

"Mary Morstan," she said quietly.

She waited for him to remember, but he was still giving her a rather blank look.

"I was at St. Barts…John's phone?" she tried, shifting rather uncomfortably.

The man's face fell for a moment, then he looked mortified. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Mary quickly said. "I get mistaken for people all the time. Least this time you actually did, well, meet me once."

"I don't honestly remember much about that day," the man admitted, more to himself than to Mary. He shook his head and plastered a false smile onto his face. "Well, it was nice to see you under better circumstances."

Mary gave him a small smile and nodded. "What finds you up this way?"

"Wrapped up…" he trailed off, waving his hand in the air.

Mary had never heard where the DI had been reassigned, or if he even been reassigned.

"A case," he finished, shoving his hands into his pockets. "What catches you up here?"

"Finished work," she said, indicating to the blinding orange dried nail polish streaked all over her blouse. "Needed chocolate."

She reached forward for a candy bar, blinding grabbing at the first one she saw. Mary wasn't picky about chocolate. She'd eat anything claiming to be chocolate.

"You see John since?"

Mary shook her head. "I did try to see how he was…mostly because…."

She trailed off unsure how to explain it without making her look mental. However, from the understanding look and head nod Lestrade gave her, she figured she didn't need to explain.

"I've been having tea with Mrs Hudson weekly since I attempted to see him, as he wasn't there but she insisted I come in," Mary babbled.

A warmer smile painted the wearly DI's face. "That's Mrs Hudson."

Mary gave a half smile and nodded. "So, you're still…a DI? That whole…thing blew over?" At his confused look, Mary quickly added. "I read it in the papers. I started reading those again."

"Oh, yeah. You had no clue what you'd walked into, unlike most of London would have," Lestrade remembered. He leaned forward and grabbed an Areo bar. "Still in the same division. Just get the less… interesting cases now. And am watched like a hawk. Wanted to…"

"Reassign you?"

"No. Force me into an early retirement," Lestrade bitterly spat, scowling at the candy display.

"But, it mysteriously cleared up like magic in the past six weeks?" Mary casually asked.

Lestrade raised an eyebrow, turning his head to look at her. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess?" she offered. "I haven't seen anything in six weeks and occasionally the press likes to show what idiots you lot are at NSY. If you'd retired, the DI who worked with Sherlock Holmes, it'd be in the news."

"Yeah," he said slowly, eyeing her again.

"I won't keep you. I've got my chocolate bar," Mary said, forced cheer in her tone. She stepped backwards and turned to head to the check out point.

"You had a run in with Mycroft, didn't you?" he called from behind her.

Mary froze. Slowly, she turned around.

"Who?" she inquired, trying to look confused.

"Mr Holmes," Lestrade tried. "Sherlock's brother?"

"Oh, er, yeah. Kinda."

"What did he want?"

_Oh, to show me Sherlock Holmes was still alive and wants my help passing on information! Likely to you!_

Oh. My. God.

"What?" Lestrade asked upon seeing her facial expression.

"I'm not sure what he wanted," Mary lied. "He seemed to think I knew something. I guess I…popped up on his monitors a little too often in my…"

Mary fished around for something that was close enough to the truth she wouldn't get caught out too badly if the truth ever did come to light.

"Research into Sherlock. I became…well, interested after….Oh, god," Mary sighed, hiding her face in her palm. "I'm standing here, in a shop, talking to a guy I met once and I've got orange nail polish on my shirt and I'm pretty much a fan girl."

Mary felt the heat rise in her cheeks. This wasn't technically true, as she wasn't a fan girl. She believed in the truth: Sherlock was the real deal, but she didn't follow his work, she wasn't about to fall to bits in his presence or ask for his autograph. In reality, she was simply obsessed with the reason he'd jumped and now she was in over her head.

The mug in her cupboard told her so much.

But, being a fan girl was good cover.

"He thought you knew something he didn't?"

"I think he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to drag his brother's name through the mud. Heard from that reporter who broke the story?" Mary asked, peeking out from behind her fingers.

Lestrade folded his arms across his chest and stared her down.

"No. But that doesn't mean much."

"Oh, but doesn't it?" Mary asked, lowering her hand and pulling her coat closed. The zipper had broken that morning, so duh, she couldn't hide her stained blouse unless she held the coat closed. "If you had a sensational story like that, your career would rocket out of control. You'd be the next best thing to sliced bread in the world of journalism. Your big break. You'd be writing stories left and right, or at least keeping up your Internet presence."

Lestrade's left eyebrow quirked up in a familiar manner. "So, you've got a theory, don't you? Like the nuts behind the I Believe in Sherlock Holmes movement?"

"I've got a theory," Mary confirmed, refraining from breaking into the song from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ musical episode.

"Don't say it's a dancing demon, witches, midgets or bunnies," Lestrade joked, noticing her pause.

Mary blinked at him.

"I'm old, but I'm not that old," he commented dryly. "So, what is your theory?"

Crap. She had to make up a theory now. Bugger all.

"He's the real deal," she started.

"He is?"

"Yes. His methods are almost flawless. Looking at someone and being able to make deductions is real," Mary insisted.

"Oh? Can you do it, then?"

"In a sense," Mary said, figuring she really had nothing to loose. For some reason she felt that it wasn't chance she'd run into DI Lestrade today.

"Go for it. Deduce me," he challenged, arms still folded tightly across his chest.

He looked doubtful she'd be able to figure anything out about him.

Letting out a puff of air through her mouth, she tighten her arms around her and scanned the man in front of her. He was in a three day old suit, judging by the wrinkles and creases in the jacket and trousers. He had forgotten his overcoat, so he'd been in a rush when he'd left. His skin was rather dry, so he was spending a lot of time in the office. And not sleeping, judging by the bags under his eyes. It'd also been awhile since he'd had a hair cut. Or shaved.

"You're not doing press conferences any longer," Mary stated.

"Oh?"

"You don't care about your personal image. You're in a three day old suit, haven't shaved in a few days and your skin is really dry, meaning you've been at the office for way too long and not going home at night. The case you just closed was either really, really challenging, or you're trying to do ten things at once to prove to your superiors you still got it after the Sherlock Debacle. And you rushed out of the office at top speed and forgot your coat. Or you don't have one…"

She stared at his hands, then looked back at his face in quick succession.

"You were married, but haven't been for a while now, but just recently took the ring off. Like in the last five months," Mary stated. "The dent on your finger is almost gone."

When the DI continued to simply stare at her, she pushed on with trying to figure things out about him. She hadn't done something like this before, where she looked at someone and deduced them in a similar manner to how Sherlock did, but she found it was kind of easy— well, when the person stayed still and allowed her to stare.

"You text. Your thumb nails are angled, but not because you cut them that way. You text more than you talk on your phone. And you've got one of those fancy smart phones, hence the angle on both thumbs. You often jam your thumbs into the phone instead of simply lightly touching the screen. Or, you could have a Blackberry I guess with actual keys. I'm not up on my cell phone models, but you've got one with a full keyboard."

Lestrade stared at his hands.

"Er…it's easy to see you're a police officer by how you stand," she offered, indicating to his stance. "You're right handed and used to have a pierced ear, but you let it heal up. Likely when you entered the force."

He blinked at her, his mouth hanging open a little.

"And you might need reading glasses," she offered, remembering him squinting at his John's mobile all those months ago. "But, that is a guess out in left field."

"Who are you?"

"Mary Morstan," Mary repeated. "Tutor."

"Tutor in what?"

"At the moment: French and maths. Mostly French," Mary replied.

"And you tutor more than one person?"

"Well, no," Mary admitted. "I only have one employer. They want me to start teaching their youngest French soon, so I'll be working mornings at some point."

"Hmmm."

Mary nodded and rocked on her heels for a moment before saying, "Well, I'll be going."

"Wait."

Mary paused.

"This might sound strange, but can I have your number. For work related purposes."

"I'm not Sherlock."

"No, but you're the closet thing I've found," Lestrade stated.

"But, you got in a lot of trouble allowing him—"

"I'm not calling you to come to crime scenes," Lestrade quickly said. "You're not a scientist."

"No, I can't say I am."

"But, you deduce just like him," Lestrade said, a bit of awe in his tone. "Only you seem to have social graces, something Sherlock lacked by the truck load."

Mary quirked an eyebrow.

"All you would be is a consultant who looks at photos. Sherlock could figure things out from photos, but was faster if I let him on scene. The deductions are all I need from you. I won't be able to pay…"

"I don't need money," Mary said quietly.

She weighted her options. She did not want to replace Sherlock Holmes. Especially since she knew he was alive and hopefully at some point he'd return. But, this was not a chance meeting between her and Lestrade. Sherlock might have information he needed handed over to the DI. If she was all ready on good terms with him, he would take whatever she had from Sherlock without it being strange. And if he thought she was a deduction wizard instead of people smart, he wouldn't ask too many questions.

"I'm good at looking at people," Mary offered. "I can look at people and figure things out about them. I've always been able to do it."

"You did it to Mycroft," Lestrade remembered, nodding his head. Something in his demeanor shifted and he seemed lighter, almost cheery. "And now me. It won't be like it was with Sherlock. You are not Sherlock."

He put stress on his last sentence. Mary wasn't sure if she ought to be insulted or not.

"That I am not. I'm just plain old Mary," she informed him with a small smile.

"I need him," Lestrade admitted quietly. "God help me, but I need him and he's not here."

Mary bit her bottom lip and prayed the man did not fall apart. He did not. He still seemed happier than he'd been when she first ran into him.

"Okay," Mary heard herself say. "Here. Give me your mobile."

Lestrade forked his mobile over. Mary quickly figured out how to use the touch screen phone (it was a little high tech for her, as she still had a basic, ancient mobile she'd picked up almost five years ago in New Zealand and simply put a new sim card in it upon returning to London) and entered her mobile number.

"I do like puzzles," Mary quietly admitted. "But, I'm a lot slower than Sherlock at figuring them out."

"I understand. Next time I get a puzzler, I'll give you a ring," Lestrade promised, taking his phone as Mary extended it to him.

"Okay," Mary said. "Well, till then."

"Till then."

* * *

It was no surprise when Mary finally reached home, Sherlock Holmes was sitting on her couch, surrounded by papers and the London mug in his hand.

"I made you a key. Did you find it?" Mary asked, dumping her purse and shopping bag on the ground.

"I did," Sherlock muttered, not looking up from whatever he was doing.

He had clearly been in her flat for a long time. He'd used the only blank wall in the room for his own evidence board. There were faces of angry looking people and various other things that didn't look pleasant plastered all over the wall above her micro sized television.

"I got you some groceries," Sherlock said, glancing up at her. "I put them away."

He smirked, then looked back down at the paper in his hands.

Mary wearily opened cabinets and found he'd bought a whole lot of chocolate digestives, but stored them on the upper shelves out of her reach. Chuckling, Mary exited the living area for her bedroom, where she shed the orange stained blouse and broken coat. She pulled on some more comfortable clothes, then ambled out and headed into the kitchen. Picking up the shopping bag she'd gotten from the grocery shore closer to her flat, she sorted through it till she found the pasta and sauce she'd picked up for dinner.

"Did you meet Lestrade?" Sherlock inquired.

"Yes. Did you plan that?"

"Did I plan for your charge to throw fluorescent orange nail varnish at you and cause you so much stress you needed chocolate on your way home?" Sherlock asked, sounding innocent. "No. But, I did make sure Lestrade was near that Marks and Spencer when I figured out that was where you were heading. Luckily, you stayed long enough for me to have Mycroft pick Lestrade up and dump him at the correct location."

"Mycroft kidnapped him and didn't tell him anything?"

"He was checking up on Lestrade," Sherlock offered, turning back to the papers. He shuffled them about and let out a huff. He stood up and strode across the tiny room to his evidence board and stuck his nose close to the wall.

Getting the feeling he was not going to speaking again anytime soon, Mary continued making dinner. She made enough that if Sherlock wanted any, he could get some for himself. She hated when she was thinking to be interrupted, so she didn't say anything to the stock still man when she was finished. When he moved to sit down she said, "If you want to eat, nows your chance."

"I'm fine."

"Leftovers for dinner tomorrow," Mary mused, standing to wash her own plate off and put away the leftovers.

Sherlock did not make any further noise that evening till Mary came out of her room to get some water before bed.

"You are going to help Lestrade out in a capacity similar to myself?" Sherlock inquired.

"Oh. I guess. We both made sure we both understood I was not you and would not be as involved as you. I'll look at pictures only. Though, I think he might have me look at suspects," she admitted, biting her lip. "Was that your plan?"

"Not really. I assumed he wouldn't ask you so soon. I wanted you to be more acquainted with him so it would not be strange when you start calling in tips," Sherlock offered.

"Tips?"

"Things I would tell him myself but am unable to," Sherlock supplied, turning back around. "For instance, I have located the sniper that was meant to take out Lestrade."

He extended a folder towards her.

"What? One of the three…was Lestrade?" Mary asked, eyes large. She took the folder and opened it. She was met with information about a police officer. "One of his own?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, sounding upset. "The man worked for Brook. He was put in place a year ago to take out Lestrade at the end if I failed to follow through. He is still in place, as due to Brook's death, he was never recalled from his position. Another sniper named Sebastian Moran took over Brook's position in the network from what I've discovered, and has kept the snipers in place in case…well, incase I'm not actually dead."

Mary slowly raised her eyes up to meet Sherlock's.

"Moran not an idiot?"

"Not a big enough one," Sherlock grumbled. He tossed his gingery-blonde hair out of his eyes and huffed. "He doesn't know if I'm alive or dead, but he doesn't want to take chances, as he blames me for Brook's death."

"Brook shot himself."

"Because of a game he was playing with me," Sherlock stated flatly. "Moran is hard to find information on, but I have removed the sniper after Mrs Hudson. He was easy to take care of, as he was one of the assassins that moved into our neighborhood shortly before…The Fall."

"Huh," Mary said, scratching her head. She looked at the folder in her hands. "You want me to give this to him, then?"

"No. You're going to have to deduce the idiot in the office in front of Lestrade. Learn the file, learn the man's past. Oh, and I want you to share your issue with me leaping to my death while people thinking I was a fake. You never did tell Lestrade your theory and why you caught Mycroft's attention. You distracted him with deduction."

Mary frowned. Sherlock chuckled at his own joke.

"CCTV. Mycroft sees all," Sherlock scoffed, turning around and gathering his papers together. "Anyways, there is no rush as I doubt Moran will order Lestrade's death. He is harmless."

"Is this sniper deal why John's not at the flat?" Mary asked quietly.

"No."

Sherlock's voice was tight and his movements were suddenly jerky.

"Oh."

Sherlock sat down hard on the couch and glowered. He shook his head and went back to gathering up his papers.

"Are you leaving?"

"No. I'm cleaning up after myself. It would be kind of you to allow me to remain for a few days," he said, brash tone to his voice.

"If you must. I don't have another bed. Just that lumpy couch you're sitting on."

"That is fine," Sherlock said tightly.

"Night."

Mary quickly left the room and locked herself in the bedroom. Granted, this meant Sherlock did not have access to the loo, but at the moment she did not care. He was a guy. He could go outside for all she cared.

Then she remembered how he'd broke into the flat twice all ready.

He'd just pick the lock.

She flipped it back to unlock.

She slept with her cell phone in her hand and knife under her pillow. Just in case. Sherlock might be harmless, but if she'd learned anything from John's blog, troubled followed Sherlock Holmes.


	6. Reaching Out

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews and follows. They're much appreciated._

* * *

_Reaching Out…_

Sherlock stayed at Mary's flat for three days. In those three days, he completely covered her walls in a spider web of clues and trails. His web quickly outgrew the wall he started on, so Mary took down her own evidence boards and allowed him to overtake the entire lounge. Soon there were strings criss crossing the room making it a obstacle course to get from one end to the other.

Mary returned from work on the third evening to a Sherlock free flat. He'd put his London mug in the cabinet and there was a folder with a yellow note on the breakfast bar. It read:

_Here are a few cases in the papers I've solved for Lestrade. I have given you the answer, you need to figure out to get to it. -SH_

Flipping through the folder, she found a list of crimes, along with who did these crimes and the reason for death. There was also a pile of newspaper clippings. Since Sherlock had taken all available wall space in the lounge (and the lounge as well), Mary retreated to her bedroom to figure out what Sherlock had left for her.

After looking through the cases and what Sherlock had used to get to the answer, she pondered if this was Sherlock's idea of a practical joke.

Four days later, Lestrade phoned requesting she drop by the Yard whenever she could. That day after work, instead of taking the Tube home, she took it to the stop nearest the Yard. She wasn't sure what to do, so she entered at the visitor's entrance and requested to see Lestrade.

"Name?"

"Mary Morstan."

"Fill this out."

Mary signed her name, the reason she was visiting and handed the clipboard back to the secretary. The secretary printed out a visitor's badge and handed it to her.

"I'll call him now."

"Thank you," Mary said, clipping the badge to her broken coat.

She hadn't had the time since the whirlwind of Sherlock and trying to figure out how to prove his cases in a plausible way to get a new jacket, or fix the zipper. Mary was trying to figure out if she could fix the broken zipper when a throat cleared above her head. Lifting her head, she found Lestrade standing in front of her.

"If you'd texted, I could have just snuck you up," he joked.

"That wouldn't have be proper protocol, Detective Inspector," Mary reasoned, standing. She picked her bag up and slung it over her shoulder. "We've got rules to follow. This and those, these and those. No one knows why, but they're there so we ought to follow."

Lestrade looked somewhat confused.

"Plus, they gave me this nifty badge," she offered, showing off the badge that proclaimed her a visitor.

Lestrade appeared mildly amused. Indicating for her to follow, she trailed after him. They made idle chit chat as they walked to his office. As she and Lestrade walk, Mary was well aware there were many eyes on her. It felt eerily like it had during her days as an actor. Mary was thankful when they entered the office and Lestrade shut the door, thus blocking out the curious eyes.

"Now, this case has been kicking around for a while. We've hit a dead end," Lestrade started, motioning for her to take a seat. "I can only show you what we might show the press. And not much else."

Mary quirked an eyebrow as Lestrade handed a file folder over. She could only hope she'd get a bit more than what Sherlock gave her to work with as she opened the folder up. There were some rather tame crime scene photos she was sure she'd seen in the papers and online, the typical before they were dead shots of the victim and a drawing of the body.

It wasn't a proper drawing or realistic in any sense. It was a basic body outline, no characteristics at all. However, it was labeled in a rather detail manner by someone who knew a lot of medical jargon. Upon glancing up at Lestrade, he gave her a smirk.

"The doctor who did the autopsy was more than happy to draw you a picture and tell you all about the injuries. Just in case. It's not an actual photo or anything official, so you can see it."

Mary snorted, studying the drawing. She read a few of the descriptions closer and suddenly realized something.

"Oh," she breathed, looking at the photo. Biting her lower lip, she hefted her bag into her lap. She fished through her bag till she found her notebook. Flipping it open she looked through the list of cases Sherlock had left her the answers to and found the case of the mysteriously dead woman listed. She quickly looked at the reason for death.

It had been one of the cases she swore up and down was Sherlock's idea of a practical joke, as his conclusion could not be reached by the story he left behind with the photo of the building and woman.

"This was in the paper," Mary said, pulling the notebook out and flipping it to a new page to cover the need to look in the first place. "I believe I read it."

"Hmmm," Lestrade agreed. "It got quite a bit of press before something else interesting happened. So, any ideas?"

Mary gulped. "Don't know yet. Just remember reading about it."

She looked back at the crime scene photos. They were mostly the outside of the building the woman lived in. There was one of the door to the flat, taped off with police tape.

That had not been in the paper. It looked like a boring picture, but something struck Mary as she looked into the room behind the police tape.

The building the woman lived in was well maintained— painstakingly so. To the point it looked almost fake. The same could have been said for the room behind the police tape.

Mary flipped to the drawing. The body had a shallow cut on the left hand, like the victim had accidentally stabbed herself with something at some point. There was something in the cut, a toxin of some sort, but the doctor had yet to find it in the database. The drawing stated the same thing Sherlock had stated: the victim had been poisoned. Sherlock hadn't known how the poison had gotten in the body, but knew the woman had been poisoned by a someone who lived in the building, which she owned. Someone named Timothy Blank. (She was sure he'd made that up, but now faced with the actual case, she was thinking Sherlock lacked a sense of humor when it came to cases.)

The doctor said the poison had gotten in through the hands.

The police had told the press the blood tests were inconclusive and they had no idea how the woman had died.

If Sherlock was right (and it was likely he was) it could be theorized that the killer had snuck into the flat, poisoned something the woman used daily, left and later returned after the woman was dead to collect the object.

Mary looked back at the body drawing for a moment.

"Can you tell me anything about how you found her?"

"Sure. We found her in her home office, passed out on the ground. First we thought it was suicide, but something didn't sit right. No note and no plausible reason for her to kill herself. Then, Molly turned up with the reason for death being the cut in her hand. There was no blood anywhere in that flat."

Lestrade stared at Mary point blank for a moment.

Mary began to worry she'd be unable to make leaps to get to the actual murder.

"The wounds were covered with a bandage," Lestrade went on. "They'd happened long before she actually died so…."

"It was a slow acting poison."

Mary sighed and looked back at the pile in her hands. Glancing between the victim's photo and the photo of the room behind the police tape, Mary suddenly knew why there was no blood.

The killer hadn't cleaned up after himself. The woman had cleaned up.

In the photo, the woman's hair was flawless, her jewelry was shining a little too much, her makeup was immaculate and her clothing was pressed perfectly. Granted, this was a poised photo, but still. Everything was just a little too neat. Looking back at the photos of the room, it was almost too clean and organized— even from a distance and after being invaded by the police. Put together with the state of the building, Mary began to get a tingling feeling. Like her brain was almost to some sort of realization.

"She was a neat freak," Mary stated. "She would have cleaned up quickly and efficiently. Wiped everything down and cleaned herself up. Check the dirty clothes bin. I bet she changed after her accident when she cut her hand."

"All right," Lestrade said, looking doubtful.

"It's just a thought. I'm not really sure, but since the wound on her hand …. This is kind of hard," Mary said, staring at the photos. "But, I can tell you the woman was beyond neat. I bet she even folded her dirty laundry."

"What would she have cut herself on, though? The cut was…not made by a knife, as the drawing stated."

"True. She was in her office…and cut herself…on…" Mary trailed off. "Do you know her daily habits? I'd start there. She was doing something she must have done on a daily basis when she cut herself."

"Okay," Lestrade said, leaning back in his chair. It gave a squeaking noise in protest of his weight and movement. He put his hands behind his head and stared Mary down.

Her phone beeped.

She fished the phone out of her pocket, dropping her bag from her lap. It landed on a floor with a thump as she stared at the tiny screen.

_Letter opener._

"Oh."

"What?" Lestrade asked.

Mary bit the inside of her cheek for a moment. She had to somehow work out what this woman was doing with a letter opener that would lead to her death. She slipped the phone back into her pocket. She bit the inside of her cheek for a moment.

"Important?"

"No," she lied. She let silence blanket the room for a moment before asking, "What was this woman's job?"

"She worked as an accountant at some little firm in the City and owned the building she lived in," Lestrade replied. "She was…anal about the care of the building per her tenants."

Bingo.

"Did she get a lot of mail?"

Lestrade looked mildly confused by the question. He rubbed his chin a few times before sitting up, his chair once again making a noise of protest.

"I think she might have," Lestrade offered, seemingly remembering something. "She was at her desk, surrounded by envelopes that I guess she might have been organizing."

And Bingo was his name-o.

"Well, someone as…neat as this woman seemed to be, would use a letter opener to neatly open her letters," Mary explained. "And, the cut on her hand…"

Lastarde suddenly wore an excited expression and slapped his desk with the palm of his hand. "She stabbed herself with her own letter opener!"

Mary nodded.

"But…"

"You didn't find one?"

"No." Lestrade shifted through some papers in the file. "It was not listed as one of the objects on her desk."

"She'd have one."

"And it'd be bloody."

"No. She would have cleaned it right away after she stabbed herself on accident. Just as she cleaned herself up," Mary reminded him. "She is neat to a fault. Her apartment was so clean it was hard to find evidence, wasn't it?"

Lestrade sniffed. "So she cleaned it and then…"

"Went about her business."

"Clean freak…" Lestrade muttered, looking through the photographs. "Anally organized. She wouldn't misplace a letter opener. And it's not listed."

"Logically, you could make the leap someone stole it after she was dead," Mary suggested. "You interviewed the tenants, right?"

Lestrade hummed as there was a knock on the door. It opened without Lestrade saying anything.

"Oh. I didn't know you had company," a voice said from behind Mary.

Turning, Mary found a woman with mocha colored skin and very curly hair enter, holding another folder. She was dressed in a suit and heels, all very practical. She had an air about her that told Mary the woman thought she was better than most of the other officers and she hated outside influences stealing her glory. Years on the job had created a very hard shell that was almost impossible for people to get passed and caused her to behave somewhat rudely to people who challenged her or embarrassed her.

This woman would have hated Sherlock.

"Donovan?" Lestrade asked, looking up at the woman.

"I have the Mallory case," she said, extending the file out. "I need you to sign off on it."

"Give it here," Lestrade said, extending his hand for the folder Donovan had. He placed the other file on the desk.

Mary felt the other woman giving her a once over.

"Er, Detective Inspector? Are we done?" Mary asked.

Lestrade looked up from his desk and said, "No. I've got one other I wanted you to look at. It's a person. A live one."

"Good thing I only deal with alive ones," Mary lamely joked.

Lestrade chuckled, pushing himself to his feet.

"Sir?" Donovan asked.

"Yes?"

Donovan must have given Lestrade a look from behind, as she said nothing. Lestrade pressed his lips into a thin line, opened the folder, signed whatever and slammed it shut.

"Here, Donovan," Lestrade said, holding out the folder. "Ms Morstan, if you'd follow me. Detective Inspector Dimmock has a suspect he swears to god is lying."

"Sir?" Donovan asked again, sounding alarmed.

"Yes, Donovan?"

"Sir, who is this?" Donovan finally asked.

"Mary Morstan," Lestrade offered, as Mary got to her feet. "She's a consultant on human behavior. Heard of those?"

Donvoan glanced at Mary and scowled.

Whoa.

Mary bent over and picked up her fallen bag, putting her notebook back inside. She kept her eyes on the ground.

"Sir, after what happened with the Frea— "

"Do not finish that sentence, Donovan," Lestrade snapped. His face went dark and his eyes flashed. Donovan shrunk backwards. "Mary, this way."

Lestrade stalked out of his office and Mary scampered to keep up. They passed by desks so quickly Mary was unable to see any of the officers or feel their eyes follow her this time. The angry DI and Mary wound their way through the hallways till they reached what Mary assumed were the questioning rooms. Or whatever they were properly called.

"Now," Lestrade began, stopping and turning to Mary. He had reverted back into the kind faced, yet serious man Mary was used to dealing with. "All I want you to do is look at the guy, okay? Tell me anything you can about him. Just by looking at him, okay?"

Mary nodded.

Lestrade opened the door and led her into the room that was behind the two way mirror. There were a few others in the room. They looked up in question at Lestrade, but said nothing. Mary turned and stared through window into the room on the other side.

One person was clearly the DI, as he was asking the questions. There was someone seated next to him, who Mary assumed was another officer. The lone person on the other side of the table was the suspect.

It took Mary a good ten minutes before she decided the person was indeed lying. She stayed till the end of the round of questions and followed Lestrade out into the hall. He went into another room and said, "Gimme."

"He's lying. There is a little tick in his eyebrow each time they ask him where he was last night and he blinks funny. Also, none of the clothing he is wearing at the moment actually belongs to him. It doesn't fit him correctly. The pants are too short and the coat is too long. Either buys nice things for the labels at a resale and charity shops and doesn't care about the size or he stole them, so he had no choice in the size. He is trying to appear more posh than he actually is, maybe so you won't think he'd been in the seedy area where the crime was committed. I'd hazard he's an actor, or wants to be one, as he's very good at at what he was doing in there. There were a few times he managed not to have the little tick or the funny blink, but because he's not in a movie, he's flustered. He doesn't know what is coming next, so each time the DI threw him off, he ticked.

"He's right handed, but tends to do things with his left hand as well, but not as often. He wears contacts, which might account for all the blinking. He's missing a ring, as there's a dent on his right middle finger near the base. Tell tale sign of a long term ring wearing. I'm pretty sure his girlfriend recently left him, as he has a cramp in his left hand."

Latrade choked and sputtered.

"That all?" he asked in a faintly higher voice.

"I'd ask him where his ring went," she offered. "Did you happen to find a ring?"

"I'm not at liberty to say," Lestrade replied, but Mary could tell they had found one at the scene, but had been unable to get anything off of it at the moment to get the guy.

"Okay," she replied easily and shrugged.

Lestrade stared at her for a moment, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, thanks for coming down."

"Any time. I like looking at people and not having them freak out on me for staring. I'm kind of slow in making observations," Mary offered.

"Well, you still make them to a frightening degree as Sherlock did," Lestrade commented. He heaved a sigh and gazed over her shoulder for a moment. Snapping his eyes back to her he said, "I'll see you out."

* * *

Mary ambled down the street towards the Tube station. Around New Scotland Yard, there were a ton of I Believe In Sherlock Holmes posters, as well as a few Moriarty Is Real mixed in. She smiled as she passed a clump of posters, till her eye caught one that did not fit. She stopped, turned around and went back to the clump, looking at the out of place poster carefully. She had to remove a Sherlock poster and a Moriarty one in order to see the full poster that did not belong among the others.

It was a bright, cartoonish blue poster with white print that was in some fancy font that Mary instantly recognized as the font used for the last movie she ever made. It had been a period piece about the Gilded Age where she had played the American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt.

The poster read: If you are Kelia Kensington, please contact Sholto, Greeney, and Hamshire.

That was all it said.

She tore the poster off the wall and quickly folded it into quarters, shoving it into her pocket. Gulping, she glanced around, wondering if anyone had noticed her. The people on the street failed to really take note, but as she looked around, her eyes fell upon a CCTV camera pointed right at her.

Her skin crawled.

Turning she went back on her way to the Tube station.


	7. In Plain Sight

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

_A/N: I'm kind of on the fence post if the first part of this chapter is vital or not (rehashes a lot of stuff Mary's covered all ready), but I wrote it and I think seeing Lastrade and Donovan's reactions are important, so here it is. Once again, thanks for the reviews, follows and favorites._

* * *

_In Plain Sight…_

After helping Lestrade out another case Sherlock had all ready solved for them, Lestrade asked Mary the question she'd been waiting for since she had run into him in front of the candy display at Marks and Spencer.

"You said you caught Mycroft's attention because of your investigation into Sherlock Holmes and you had a theory about something. You never said what," Lestrade said casually after they'd finished. He didn't meet her eye, busying himself with a pile of folders.

Mary froze in the process of struggling into her jacket. Sherlock had advised her (well, more like ordered her) to tell Lestrade of her so-called-theory. Sitting back down in the chair, she watched Lestrade shuffle around the folders on his desk. He seemed to have an abnormal amount of manilla folders littering his desk suddenly. Glancing over her shoulder, she noted the door was open and right across from them was the officer who was actually a sniper. He was eyeing them with a strange look on his face.

She still hadn't figured out how to tell Lestrade about the faux-officer in place to kill him should Sherlock fail to be dead.

Sherlock failed to be dead and Mary wasn't interested in the faux officer hearing her thoughts on the topic.

Lestrade finally stopped shuffling folders and looked at her in question. Mary stood up and shut the door. Leaning against it, she met Lestrade's gaze.

"You'll think I'm mental," she began, biting her lower lip for a moment. "But, I don't think Sherlock's really dead."

She whispered the last part, wondering if the office was bugged.

Great. Sherlock Holmes was making her paranoid. Mary had never been paranoid before she gotten mixed up with Holmes. Now she as worried about CCTV camera spying on her every move, snipers shooting silver haired DIs and microphones hidden to listen into private conversations.

Tragically, CCTV was spying on her (how else did Sherlock KNOW when she needed help?) and there was a sniper outside poised to shoot Lestrade if he got the right signal. Oh, and there were more likely hidden listening devices all over the place.

Her life was a bad spy movie.

"You don't think he's dead? You think he fell off a building, smashed his head in, got up and walked off?" Lestrade asked, wrinkling his forehead. His confusion was plain, but he didn't think she was mental. Too many years of Sherlock Holmes spouting off impossible things had taught Lestrade to keep his ears and mind open to the improbable.

Mary looked at his face for a long drawn out moment, honestly surprised he hadn't laughed at her. He picked up on her own confusion. He gave her a look that told her to get on with it and she knew perfectly well why he didn't think she needed to be sectioned ASAP.

"So, gimme. How'd Sherlock walk off after he met the pavement head first?"

"I…I don't know," Mary admitted.

Sherlock had never told her how he did it because she wasn't interested in the how, but the why. She said so much to the DI in front of her.

"So, basically, you were curious?"

"Uh, pretty much."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"And I'm a very dead cat," Mary joked. She heaved a sigh and sat down in the chair across from Lestrade. "I cannot resist a good mystery and my curiosity…well, I found one big huge quandary. At first all I wanted to know was who the hell Sherlock Holmes was. I admit I read, er, Doctor Watson's texts whilst trying to figure out who to phone for him. While they were odd, I didn't think much of it till after you were surprised I didn't know who Sherlock was. I went home that evening, looked him up online."

Lestrade nodded, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, there was quite a bit of information. I sorted through all of it in one night. It's easy to deduce Sherlock's personality from what's out there. Doctor Watson's blog, his own blog, and then the fan sites."

"Fan sites?"

"Yes. You weren't aware of the fan sites?" Mary asked, surprised coloring her features. "I'm pretty sure they are the only non-entertainment, non-couple shipped on fan fiction sites across the web."

From the look on Lestrade's face, fan fiction was something beyond his comprehension.

"Anyways," she said loudly as the door opened behind her.

"Sir?"

"Donovan?" Lestrade asked, only sounding slightly annoyed. "Is it pressing?"

"No, but sir?" Donovan said in such a manner that it meant, _What is she doing here again? Why are you doing this again? Didn't you learn the first time not to consult with freaks?_

"We've finished our work and we're discussing something non work related. Theories and such," Lestrade announced. He shifted his eyes to Mary, the corners crinkling in amusement. "I think some kid is dreaming and we're all just stuck in his nightmare. She thinks Sherlock's alive."

Donovan made a choking noise from behind Mary.

"What do you think?" Lestrade inquired, looking back up at Donovan.

Mary turned around to find Donovan opening and closing her mouth, eyes wide and whatever she had been holding on the ground at her feet. Looking past Donovan, Mary noted the faux officer wasn't at his desk and let out a small sigh of relief.

"I believe she thinks it is the fish faced mute with the manilla folder in the study," Mary sardonically offered, turning back to face Lestrade.

"Fish faced mute…" Lestrade chuckled, shaking his head. He ran both hands through his short silver hair before looking back up at Donovan. "Sit, Donovan."

Donovan looked for a moment like she was going to bolt out of the office, but she shut the door and sat down heavily in the chair next to Mary.

"Where was I?" Mary asked, ignoring the glare from Donovan.

Donovan still was acting like she had a stick shoved up her butt, but Mary did not expect any less from the woman. Mary was technically encroaching on her territory as a detective. And if one things about Donovan anyone could see it was she was rather territorial.

"I think you're a dead cat because you started researching Sherlock," Lestrade reminded her.

"Ah, yes. I'm a dead cat. Well, I finally stopped my mad researching around four in the morning drawing only one conclusion: it made no sense."

"What made no sense?" Donovan demanded.

Mary gave the other woman a fleeting glance before saying, "That Sherlock committed suicide. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"He's a fake," Donovan stated.

"Ah, but is he?" Mary challenged.

"He is. He made it all up. He paid—"

"Ah, but did he? There are videos on YouTube that people have taken of him at crime scenes, twirling around, flapping about deducing up a storm. There were times he went off and away from the Yard, had people come to him with cases and he solved those. From watching and reading all these things posted online you can easily figure out the man's personality. He is an arrogant, self important asshole. You can also see he's a genius. He is clever and one cannot fake that on the fly. The knowledge he stored in that massive, overinflated head was real. And the cases he took and solved were way too wide spread for him to orchestrate and pay people off, even with his massive brain."

"What about Richard Brook? Who is he?"

"Richard Brook," Mary replied, an unsaid _duh_ in her tone. Donovan rolled her eyes, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "He's real. But, so is Moriarty. Here."

Mary opened up her bag, pulling out the envelope of clippings she kept in it since Sherlock had told her to tell Lestrade about her theory. The envelope contained only the vital things Mary thought she might need to prove her point. She dumped the envelope onto Lestrade's desk. After sifting through the pile, she pulled out the CV of Richard Brook.

"I know a little about acting," she offered, smoothing out the piece of paper. "And, see…he works rather sporadically after the ending of this award winning show. The only steady work he's had the past two years has been this storytelling gig for kid's TV. And, since Sherlock's fall, he hasn't worked at all. You'd think now that the evil mastermind behind Moriarty is dead and gone, he'd go back to working. He was a brilliant actor. He pulled off the role of Moriarty wonderfully. While the industry might be weary of the man for a while, it's been long enough in Hollywood time for him to go back to work. But, he hasn't."

"Where'd he go?" Donovan asked, frowning suddenly. The hostility the woman had had earlier was slowly melting off as she allowed herself to be wrapped into the story Mary was weaving.

"Richard Brook is James Moriarty. They are the same person. The paper has all ready showed the before and after. The entire nation did a DUH loudly after they saw the photos," Mary said, pulling the article out showing Brook and Moriarty together.

"I couldn't believe that," Donovan admitted, picking up the article. "I was there when he as arrested for…wearing the Crown Jewels. He didn't look anything thing like this actor, but…"

"He is," Mary said.

"So, they are the same," Lestrade stated, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair. "Which ones is the real idenity? Moriarty or Brook?"

Mary grinned. "They are the same and both real. Moriarty was the name Brook used to do his criminal consulting work. Remember? No one knows what Moriarty looked like till he showed up wearing the Crown Jewels."

Lestrade frowned. "But, how…Sherlock only met Moriarty for like five minutes. In that five minutes, how on earth did he learn all that stuff?"

Lestrade waved his hand at the news article. Mary allowed a small grin to form on her lips. Here was her new research she'd been working on since meeting Sherlock.

"Remember that case Sherlock worked with the bomber?"

Donovan frowned deeply, glaring once more at Mary. Lestrade nodded grimly. Mary searched through the pile of clipping till she pulled out the one she'd dug up on Carl Powers.

"The kid with the shoes?" Lestrade asked. "The boy who died when Sherlock was just a kid?"

"Yeah. Anyways, I decided to search Richard Brook against Carl Powers." Mary paused for a moment before pulling out a school roster she'd gotten her hands on. She pointed at the two names. "They went to school together."

"Carl Powers and Richard Brook?" Donovan asked.

Mary nodded.

"Which then made me wonder how the hell Richard Brook knew all that personal stuff about Sherlock that was in that blasted article," Mary said, pulling out the information she'd gathered on both Sherlock and Brook. "Brook went to school with Powers, Sherlock went to a fancy public school. They did not cross paths at that point. Uni? Brook went to drama school. Sherlock went to Cambridge. So, they didn't go to uni together. When did they cross paths that Sherlock would grow close enough to him to tell him all that personal stuff? In the five minutes they chatted when Brook strapped a bomb to John? During the courtroom hearing after the break-ins?"

Donovan opened her mouth, but oddly nothing came out.

"Sherlock would never tell anyone anything in that article," Lestrade said evenly, looking at Donovan. There was ice in his eyes as he looked at her. "There is only one person alive who would have known anything like that."

"John?" Donovan asked, looking at Lestrade, too bewildered to notice Lestrade's glare.

"No," Mary and Lestrade said together. "His older brother."

Donovan looked very confused.

"Anyways, I have no theory on how Brook got the information, but since he was in fact Moriarty it isn't that far fetched he might have happened to be picked up by the government… might have done something to get Mr Holmes to spill the beans on his annoying younger sibling."

Lestrade frowned deeply.

"Or, he was fed false information. No one's ever fact checked what Brook told the reporter," Mary offered. "BUT, since I figured this out, and I'm a moron, I'm sure that Sherlock knew this before he fell off the roof. So, the question remains: why did he jump off the roof?"

"Because he's a fake," Donovan insisted.

Mary really wanted to stomp on her foot. With five inch stiletto heels.

"Er, no. Brook was playing a game with Sherlock. Can't you see that? Brook was clever, just as Sherlock is clever. I'm sure he saw Sherlock as the ultimate playmate. The bombs and the trail of puzzles? That was a game to introduce himself to Sherlock properly. But, Sherlock didn't want to play the game properly. Sherlock went off and got friends."

She looked up and met the eyes of Gregory Lestrade. His mind was whirling. Mary was sure he knew a lot more about the bomber case than what Mary had been able to glean online. Lestrade also knew Sherlock better than Mary did.

Donovan snorted. "The Freak didn't have any friends. He was a psychopath."

"Eh," Mary offered. "I don't think he is, but if you'd like to entertain that idea, go right ahead. Sherlock has friends. If you read John's blog, it's clear Sherlock valued John's life over his own, hence why he didn't book it when John grabbed Moriarty when they were at the pool. So, if Brook/Moriarty threatened his friends…would Sherlock fall to save them?"

"Yes," Lestrade answered quickly, looking almost surprised he'd said it.

"Yeah. So, this is where my whole theory gets a bit wobbly, because I came up with the reasoning behind his jump after I found the headstone."

"You went to his grave?" Donovan asked, looking like she thought Mary was mental.

"No. I stumbled upon it," Mary snapped. "I happen to enjoy the calmness and quiet of graveyards and cemeteries. I don't know why, but I do. So, I visit them. I just happened to visit the one Sherlock's headstone sits in and the moment I saw it, I knew there was something wrong with it."

Donovan made a face.

"You're right," Lestrade breathed.

"What?" Donovan asked.

"It just says his name!" Lestrade exclaimed, slapping his palms on the desk. "Nothing else."

Mary smiled a small smile and nodded.

"So?" Donovan asked.

"So?" Mary challenged. "Mr Holmes is a very traditional person. At this point, I'd only met him for maybe three minutes, but I knew he worked for the government, always wore a three piece suit, drank tea on a daily basis, and carried an umbrella all the time. Give him a bowler hat, and he'd be the picture, perfect British gentleman. He is British to the core, and us British enjoy tradition."

"And Sherlock's headstone lacks dates, his middle name…" Lestrade said in an awed voice. "So…"

"It also lacks a vase for flowers— which almost all modern graves have— and is sitting all by its lonesome under a tree," Mary stated. "There are no graves for meters in a crowded graveyard in London. And, it is not normal to burry people in the areas that are meant to be clear, either, like under that tree. So, I did some digging till I found the actual graveyard where the Holmes family buries themselves and went there."

"And that's how you got Mycroft's attention," Lestrade guessed correctly. "What did he think of your theory?"

"He informed me I was rather clever, but wrong, and said he'd be in touch," Mary lied through her teeth. "Then, a few days later I ran into you."

Donovan looked like someone had whacked her over the head with a two by four.

"So, he's alive," Lestrade breathed.

"He's alive," Mary confirmed.

"No! Why did he kill himself?! Why would he do that? He made John watch! How cold hearted is that!" Donovan ranted, leaping to her feet. "He's a bloody psychopath!"

"Donovan, sit down," Lestrade snapped.

She sat down.

"I think Brook had him pushed up against the wall. Just think, what if someone told you that there were snipers or something was in place ready to kill the most important people in your life if you didn't jump off the building? What would you do?"

Donovan paled. "That didn't happen."

"What if it did?" Mary challenged. "That if Brook's people did not see you fall to your death from the roof of St. Bart's someone important to you got a bullet to his head? All your friends? Would you jump to save them?"

Donovan did not answer.

"He would," Lestrade said. "Sherlock would jump."

"But…but…but…he doesn't care! All he cares about is getting off on strange cases! He doesn't care about people! He doesn't have friends!" Donovan shouted. It honestly looked like her head was about to explode.

"He did," Lestrade replied sternly. "I was his friend. John was his friend. And…"

Lestrade trailed off, staring at his desk for a long drawn out moment. In her head Mary chanted for him to guess the right person.

"Mrs Hudson. Molly," he said, looking up at Mary, meeting her eyes. Mary gave him a very, very small smile and winked. Suddenly, it was like someone had lifted a five ton weight off Lestrade's shoulders. He sat up straighter, looked lighter and there was a spark in his eye that had been absent before. "Myself, John, Molly and Mrs Hudson. The four people threatened."

Well, Mary didn't know who Molly was, but she wasn't going to step on such a happy looking man's feet for an additional person.

"What about his brother?" Donovan asked.

"Have you met Mycroft Holmes?" Lestrade asked, leveling Donovan a look.

"No."

"Think of Sherlock, only with more power and some manners," Lestrade offered. Donovan made a face again. "Now put them in a room together." Donovan blanched. "Exactly."

Mary quietly giggled.

"So, he faked his own death to protect us….and is now?"

"Taking out Brook?" Mary offered with a small shrug. "I didn't get that far. I got distracted around the time I figured out Sherlock was alive. Then I started to tutor two kids, one who has it out for my entire wardrobe— and coming here to stare at people and tell you random things that make sense to you."

"I was wondering why you had splattered your shirt with green and yellow paint," Lestrade commented, a wry smile on his face.

Mary had seen Lestrade smile many time before, but she had never realized how tight and bland those smiles were till now. Now, Lestrade looked ten year younger and bright. Mary felt heat rising up in her cheeks and quickly looked down at her stained shirt.

"I need a new jacket," Mary moaned, trying to close her coat over her shirt. "She seriously doesn't want to learn French. Nor does her brother. I did get the goop out of my hair, right?"

"No," Donovan offered, pulling out some dried cheesy goop from Mary's hair.

"Bloody hell," Mary muttered. "I swore I got it all out before I left."

"Sounds like you could use a new job," Lestrade suggested.

"Eh," Mary said.

The three sat in silence for a moment. Mary knew Donovan was bursting with questions, rebuttals and arguments on everything Mary had told her, but was keeping silent for some unknown reason. Donovan's hands were twitching up a storm, but she refused to allow them to move from where she'd placed them flat on her thigh.

"Well, since I am a hot mess, I think it best if I check on out," Mary said, gathering her belongings.

Lestrade thanked her and offered to show her out. Mary declined, eyeing Donovan. Lestrade nodded, accepting the envelope Mary slipped him before she headed on out the door. It might be easier to deduce the mole in the office now that Lestrade knew her theory. He might even figure it out on his own since her sniper theory was in the envelope she'd handed him with all her evidence so he could look it over on his own. She didn't have much proof as she'd been told about the snipers, but she'd written down where the supposed victims were located the moment Sherlock fell down and went boom. That might give Lestrade the push in the right direction.

Mary's phone beeped as she walked out of the building. Pulling it out, she checked the message.

_Next time. Duduce mole._

Mary eyed the message for a moment, then glanced around. She didn't see anyone who resembled Sherlock, but the area was filled with CCTV cameras.

Eyes watching her. Mycroft's more than likely.

The phone beeped again.

_No. It's me. He doesn't text, remember? _

Mary pocketed the phone, looked right at one of the cameras and mouthed, "Stop reading my mind, you bloody wanker."

Turning, she stomped off to the Tube station.

* * *

John had been out of London for almost seven months. He could not handle it after the funeral and fled to the country. Henry Knight was kind enough to allow him to stay at his home for the past seven months. While it was odd being in a town that reminded him of Sherlock, he found it easier to be in Dartmoor than London. Henry was kind and understanding throughout John's morning period. Henry's therapist even saw John and was able to help John out getting a part time job being a GP in town.

John could have stayed in Dartmoor forever.

But then, he saw something and knew he had to come back London. Harry had sent it to him, thinking it would cheer him up.

It did. Until he noticed the odd, out of place posters mixed in with the I Believe In Sherlock Holmes posters. Harry hadn't mentioned those posters. John assumed she had not noticed them when she'd gone around London photographing the places where the Sherlock posters were popping up.

A quick search online showed John that the posters were asking for Kelia Kensington to contact a law office. There were theories all over the internet about what the posters meant and why they'd popped up now of all times and why they were almost always with the Sherlock posters, but nothing was all that believable.

John had not thought about Kelia Kensington in years, not since she had gone missing after her husband died.

A few days passed before John was able to talk himself into taking the train into London. He honestly was not sure why he'd come. He didn't think he'd magically find Kelia Kensington, but if she was in London, or if she was indeed still alive, John wanted to know. And to start anything, he had to go to London. He did not understand why, but his gut said he had to go to London.

John had no clue what he was looking for and spent most of his day simply walking around London, looking at the posters and attempting to figure out a pattern.

There was none.

Since he was in London for the day, John decided to stop by the Yard to see if Greg was in before catching the overnight train back to Dartmoor. While John was angry at the Yard for arresting Sherlock on his last night alive, John did not blame Greg. Greg had shown up begging Sherlock to go for questioning on his own free will, then called to warn John they were coming to arrest Sherlock. John knew Lestrade did not believe Sherlock had anything to do with the kidnapping and wanted Sherlock to vanish into the night.

Sherlock didn't, of course.

John arrived at the Yard around six in the evening.

And that was when he saw the strangest thing.

A very pretty girl with a dark bob came out of the building, clutching her jacket closed. The moment she was outside, her phone went off. She read the text and looked around, a bewildered expression on her face.

And John stopped breathing.

He blinked several times.

The phone must have beeped again, as she looked down at it, scowling. She looked up, found a CCTV camera and mouthed something at it slowly before turning and stomping off in the opposite direction.

John watched her go, feeling like he'd just gotten the wind knocked out of him.

That had been Kelia Kensington. She had just walked out of Scotland Yard and mouthed off at a CCTV camera.

What was she doing here?

John remained standing outside the Yard for an unknown length of time till someone shook his shoulder. He startled a bit to find Greg standing in front of him.

"John? What are you doing here?"

"I, er, I, uh, I came to see you, mate," John said, shifting uneasily. "I…"

"We'll I'm off. Do you have time for a pint. I haven't heard or seen you in months," Greg said.

Greg looked abnormally cheerful.

"Are you back?"

"No. Yes. No. I don't know," John managed. "Do you know Kelia Kensington?"

"That actress that vanished a few years back?"

John nodded.

"I know of her, but I don't know her," Greg said, steering John towards a taxi that had pulled up. "Why?"

Greg and John got into the taxi. Greg gave the address for a pub near Baker Street.

"Oh, well, I swear I saw her."

"What? Where? Have you seen those posters all over town asking her to contact a law firm?"

"Yeah, I did. Harry's been sending me photos of the Sherlock ones," John admitted. "I noticed the Kelia Kensington ones mixed in."

"I know. I don't get that at all. Weird, yeah?" Greg asked. John nodded. "Where did you see her?"

"Coming out of the Yard," John said. "She came out, got a text, frowned at her phone, then found a CCTV camera and mouthed something at it. I mean, I didn't…it couldn't have been her."

"Why did you think it was her?" Greg asked. "I mean, there's been lots of sightings all over town. It's like every blue eyed blonde is her."

"She didn't have blue eyes," John realized. "Though, I don't know. She had dark hair. Short. She was dressed kind of…odd. She was clutching her coat closed. And I think her shirt was stained. Maybe someone attacked her?"

"Wait. Short, dark hair? Was her shirt stained with green and yellow?"

"I think so."

"That's not Kelia Kensington," Greg laughed, looking at John like he was mad. "Oh, John…"

"You know her?"

"Of course. So do you. Well, you might not remember her," Greg said, laughter dying in his face suddenly. John gave the older man a confused look. Greg rubbed the back of his neck. "That was Mary Morstan. She, uh, picked up your cell phone the day Sherlock…"

"Oh. No, I don't remember much of that day," John lied. He remembered more than he cared to remember. He vaguely remembered a woman, but not much about her.

"Yeah. I think…well, you said she didn't look anything like Kelia Kensington, as Mycroft kept calling her Ms Kensington that day. That was really…weird. Not like Mycroft to confuse people," Greg admitted, looking confused now. "But…I guess I can see it a bit. I mean, Mary's lost a bit of weight since…then, but she doesn't really look too much like her. No blonde hair, or blue eyes. Though, I guess…"

Greg made a few vague hand motions at his face. John frowned.

"I swore that was her," John whispered, shaking his head.

"How do you even know her? I mean, Kelia Kensington, not Mary."

"Oh, she was in a play Harry was in when she was little. Kelia, not Harry," John said. "She was brilliant. Kelia, not Harry. Then, a few years later after Kelia had moved to London, I ran into her at a coffee shop. I can honestly say Kelia Kensington gave me her number and I lost it."

"Seriously?!"

John nodded. "I didn't even realize how buggered I was till she hit it big after I graduated med school and I was like, I could have dated her!"

It felt good to laugh, to remember positives times that had nothing to do with Sherlock with Greg.

John shared the USO story with Greg as well before they reached the pub. They both went in, grabbed a bite, a pint and caught up with one another for another hour before the topic of Mary Morstan came up.

"So, she's helping out on cases?" John asked, bewildered. "After all the trouble with…"

Greg nodded. "Yeah. She's a godsend, honestly. While she's…well, not as good as him— no where close— she can see things in people that I don't think the average person could see. She'd dead helpful, too. And nice."

"And you just stumbled across her?"

"Kind of," Greg said, twisting the glass in his hands and not looking at John.

John had missed his train by this point, so he was in no rush. He gave Greg the time to get his thoughts in order.

"I think Mycroft pushed her on me," Greg admitted. "He picked me up after I closed a case and then dumped me off in Kensington. On the high street near a Marks and Spencer. Since it was so strange, I went into the store. I spotted Mary staring blankly at the chocolates and knew she was why he'd dumped me there."

"Honestly?"

Greg nodded, still staring at the pint in his hands. "We got to talking, I had her do the trick she did with Mycroft at the morgue. She was dead on."

"What trick?"

"Oh, right," Greg said, glancing up. "She, uh, deduced me. And Mycroft."

"She what?"

"She looked at me and told me personal facts about myself," Greg clarified. "She did the same to Mycroft at the hospital by guessing he was with MI5."

John had a cloudy memory of this.

"Anyways, she comes in and stares at suspects for me," Greg explained. "She's helped solve two cases using what limited evidence I can show her, but she's more useful with suspects we're questioning. I wish I could hire her. The family she's working for as a French tutor…the kids are monsters. She makes almost no money and they ruin her clothes constantly. She had dried cheesy goop in her hair today and her shirt was covered in nail polish. And her coat's been broken since I met her."

John frowned.

"Another reason she can't be Kelia Kensington," Greg laughed, picking up his glass and draining it. "She'd have the money to buy a new coat."

"And not work for devil children," John finished.

"Here, here."

John parted ways with Greg a half hour later and checked himself into a cheap hotel for the night near the train station. He knew he could have gone back to Baker Street and asked Mrs Hudson to kip in the flat, but he still could not bare to go to the flat. It wasn't his flat, even if Mycroft had told him he was free to live there.

John wanted nothing to do with 221B Baker Street if Sherlock wasn't around. So, instead of sleeping in a comfortable bed pondering the mysterious Mary Morstan, he was in a crappy hotel bed pondering. He didn't come up with anything before he fell into an uneasy sleep.

It was only after he'd returned to Dartmoor and was looking through old photos of Kelia Kensington did he come across one from the last movie she had made. She played Consuelo Vanderbilt, a woman with dark hair and dark eyes.

The pieces fell into place.

That was why he thought Mary Morstan looked like Kelia Kensington. He'd watched the movie with Henry before he'd gone to London, so that image of Kelia Kensington was fresh in his head.

Looking at the photo of Kelia Kensington as Vanderbilt, John was positive Mary Morstan was in fact Kelia Kensington, with a few extra pounds on her frame.


	8. Right Here In River City

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews and follows. They're much appreciated. _

* * *

_Right Here in River City…_

"You have a problem."

Mary swallowed a scream as her eyes flew open to find Sherlock looming over her bed.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock!" Mary shirked, scrambling out of the bed, putting herself on the opposite side from the intruder.

Sherlock stared at her, no expression on his face whatsoever.

"Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" Mary screeched, putting her hand over her pounding heart.

When he failed to react in any manner, Mary studied Sherlock with practiced eyes, taking stock of what injuries he'd turned up with this time. In the seven months since Sherlock had waltzed into her life, Mary had learned that when Sherlock turned up at her flat after an absence to check for injuries and malnourishment.

He was extremely thin, cheekbones jutting out to the extreme. He needed fattening up.

He did not seem to be bleeding, in pain or bruised on his face. Last time she'd seen him his eye was black, his lip was spilt and he'd been holding his arm at a strange angle.

His limbs were all in order.

He did have a horrific dye job on his too long hair.

"What time is it?" she asked as she calmed down.

"Five."

"In the morning!"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Sherlock," she whined. "It's Saturday!"

"You have a problem," Sherlock restated.

"Right here in River City," Mary muttered watching Sherlock unfolding something he was holding onto.

She knew what he had. It was the poster like the one she'd ripped off the wall near NSY.

"Isn't it trouble right here in River City?" Sherlock asked dryly, flattening the poster out.

"Didn't delete that one, eh?"

He ignored her quip.

"These things have been popping up all over London among the posters my…fans," he spit out the word, "have been putting up."

Mary said nothing. She hadn't actually seen any other posters on Kelia Kensington, but then again she had not been looking. She'd taken to staring resolutely at the ground since she'd seen her first one in December.

"They've been in several tube stations, bus stations and train stations. They've turned up in restaurant toilets, public loos and other public areas. They have been steadily growing in number for the past few months," Sherlock went on. "The question is: why is a law firm so desperate to find Kelia Kensington after she's been missing for five years? And why, since they began appearing six months, do they seem more desperate to find you."

"Six. It's been almost six years," Mary whispered, as she realized what the date happened to be. "Where has my life gone?"

"What do you mean?"

"Sherlock! You've been dead for a year! When you died I'd been off the radar for almost five years! Oh my god! I missed my own birthday…"

"As did I," Sherlock commented calmly. "You've been busy. Helping Lestrade close cases— you've still not told him about his sniper— and tutoring two brats— one who keeps ruining your clothing with nail polish, while the other one ruins them with chemicals."

Mary glared at Sherlock.

"I would suggest a different method with the young boy. He reminds me of myself at that age. I tended to lash out at tutors in a similar manner, though, my efforts yielded better results," he said, smug tone in his voice.

"Whatever, Sherlock," Mary snapped. "Oh my god. I'm thirty years old!"

Mary grabbed at her own hair, still short and dark brown, and tugged hard.

"And I am thirty-six," Sherlock offered, looking baffled. "Is there a point to your…currently condition?"

"I'm old! Someone is searching for me! And not me, but Kelia Kensington! And I've tried to tell Lestrade and deduce the faux officer, but he transferred himself to a different department!"

"He did?" Sherlock asked. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I haven't seen you since he did it. I tried to talk to him, as Lestrade didn't figure it out—"

"He's an idiot," Sherlock scoffed.

"—but the guy would never give me any wiggle room when Lestrade was around. I tried to push Lestrade in the right direction, as he's suspicious of everyone around him now."

"That's not very like him," Sherlock admitted. "Maybe I can get Mycroft to deal with this man and let Lestrade know."

"Could you? Donovan is really…tetchy when I try to venture off into other departments and talk to other people."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"So, besides ripping me a new one for failing to get the faux officer, you're here about the posters?" Mary asked, motioning to the poster sitting on her bed.

"Yes, this bothers both Mycroft and myself," Sherlock commented. He looked down at the wrinkled poster. "It was well known who Kelia Kensington's used for legal representation. Why would they not contact that man?"

"They could have," Mary offered, grabbing her dressing gown and tying it around herself.

Now that she was no longer suffering from an out of control heart, she was in need of some tea in the worst possible manner. Mary headed for the open door of her bedroom, Sherlock following her out.

"No, they did not," Sherlock said. "Remember? Mycroft knows the man. The first time he noticed the Kelia Kensington posters he contacted the man, who said he had not seen the posters or been in contact with anyone since you first vanished who was looking for Kelia Kensington. Nor you."

"No. Mary Morstan has no need for a lawyer," Mary offered. "You've been dead for almost a year and I haven't seen John…"

Mary said the last part quietly, filling the kettle with water. Sherlock cleared his throat loudly, but did not comment. Mary sunk deep into thought.

She'd been seeing Mrs Hudson for almost ten months and neither had spoken of the original reason she'd knocked on the door in the first place.

Where was John?

"He is safe," Sherlock murmured quietly from behind Mary, causing her to jump in surprise.

"Will you stop sneaking up on me," she hissed. "You mean John, correct?"

Sherlock nodded his head slowly. His hair was no longer gingery-blond, but all out blond, with his dark roots showing. His hair was also in kinky waves, which were either natural or he had attempted to crimp his hair. He reminded Mary of Madonna early in her career with her bleached hair and dark roots. All he needed was a headband or something.

"Where is he?" Mary asked.

Sherlock studied Mary for a long, drawn out moment. He said nothing, but she knew he was not going to tell her when she'd asked.

"I need a shower."

"Will your hair look better after you've showered?" Mary asked, eyeing the strange hair.

Sherlock pressed his lips together. "No. Highly unlikely."

"Bleach did your hair in, didn't it?" she teased. "You've been using that stuff from the chemist, haven't you?"

He looked further annoyed.

"Why are you not orange?" she asked. "I know you've got naturally dark brown hair, but you've got natural red undertones…"

"It is orange after I bleach it," Sherlock replied stiffly.

Mary giggled. She was talking about hair with Sherlock Holmes in her tiny kitchen. At five in the morning. Oh, she must be dreaming.

"Well, you're in need of a touch up. If you can wait to wash your hair, I'll nip down to a special shop, get some proper hair color for you and fix you."

"Fix me?"

"Your hair, Mr Holmes. I doubt I can fix anything else for you," she teased.

Sherlock gave her a curt nod and stalked off. A moment later, she heard the water going in the loo. She finished making her tea, drank it and made some toast. Munching on the toast, she threw her phone and wallet into her coat pocket and headed out to the shops. It was only after she was outside in the early morning light did she realize it was more than likely only six in the morning and no shops were open yet. Laughing to herself, she decided she'd go for a long walk, eat another breakfast then hit up the salon she had her hair done at. Her hairdresser would give her what she needed to bleach and dye Sherlock's hair properly.

* * *

Four hours later, Mary was leaning against the counter of the salon, waiting for her hairdresser. The man, Marc, walked out and his face lit up.

"Ah, Mary, Mary quite contrary!" he called out, tossing his arms around her. "Your hair is marvelous!"

"Of course," she laughed.

"You do not have an appointment today, though, so why are you here?"

"I need some hair color for a friend. He wants to be blond, but he's got darker hair with red undertones. He tragically used stuff he got from the chemist," Mary said, exchanging looks with her stylist.

"Oh, not good. I take it you'd like to buy some proper stuff? Is he too embarrassed to leave the house?"

"You could say that," she agreed.

She doubted she'd be able to get Sherlock to step foot in a salon in a million years. Even if he wasn't supposed to be dead.

Marc made a motion for her to follow him. Mary did, walking through the happening salon. Saturdays were alway busy. She was amazed Marc actually had a moment to spare her.

"So, who is this man who dyes his hair?"

"Just a friend."

"Just a friend?" Marc asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Mary rolled her eyes. "Oh, give me hope, Mare. I've been seeing you for almost a year now since you walked in with that drab, horrid hair and you've never mentioned a man before!"

"He's just a friend. Who comes and goes," Mary replied. "I have no idea what he does, but he turned up this morning with the worst hair ever. Think Madonna early 80s, only a thousands times worse."

Mary left out that it was even more tragic because Sherlock had such lovely hair before he began to color it. Even when it was brick straight and ginger he had looked better than whatever he'd done to it recently.

"Oh, classic, but so bad on a man!" Marc exclaimed, opening a door to a small room filled with hair coloring products. "All right, here we are, the hair color lair! Now, what shade of blond ought we give him?"

Pulling out a color wheel of blond hair, the pair went to work.

* * *

Mary returned to the flat to find a frizzy, fluffy haired Sherlock pouting on her couch. His hair looked a thousand of time better than the crimped look he'd been sporting when he'd turned up. Even if now it appeared as if he'd stuck a fluff ball on his head.

"You've been gone for hours," he complained.

"Sorry. But nothing was open at six in the morning," she replied. "I figured you had work to do anyway."

Sherlock huffed, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Oh, come along, Drama Queen," she quipped. "Marc showed me what to do and told me I needed to get this on your head as soon as possible. Pip, pip, Holmes."

Still pouting, Sherlock stood up and followed her into loo. She closed the toilet and indicated he ought to sit.

"First, we're going to color correct what you've done. Then I'm going to make you sit with a conditioning mask on your head for a good hour," she informed him. "So, hopefully you don't want to go out and run around London today."

"Boring," he drawled. "I am here because I need to think. And Mycroft wanted me to tell you he's set up a mail box for you. And this arrived."

Sherlock pulled out an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.

Mary took it and looked at it, instantly dropping it when she saw it was addressed to Kelia Kensington.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "Are you going to open it?"

"Why don't you just tell me what is in there?" Mary suggested, snapping on some plastic gloves. She pulled out the color corrector Marc had sold her. Picking up her comb she began to section off Sherlock's shaggy hair in a similar manner Marc did hers when she went in for her appointments.

"Boring."

"Well, you're no fun either," Mary snapped. "I'll open it later."

Sherlock huffed. "Fine. It's a check. For ten thousand pounds."

Mary dropped the comb.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Sherlock grumped, picking up the comb and handing it back to her. "Mycroft's people took it upon themselves to contact the law firm on your behalf using a mail box and fake address they set up for you. Instead of answering the letter properly, this check appeared. It is legit, only you won't be unable to cash it due to the fact you're called Mary Morstan now and not Keila Kensington."

"Well, then."

"Mycroft has suggested on opening an account in Kelia Kensington's name, but that wouldn't work because Kelia Kensington doesn't exist," Sherlock went on. "Granted, you could do it illegally, but what good would that do?"

"Why can't Kelia Kensington sign it over to someone?"

"What?"

"Honestly, Sherlock," Mary sighed, working the goop through his hair. "Since I am Keila, I can sign the check over to…someone."

"Who? What if they trace it? They find out Kelia Kensington is singing her checks over to this no one named Mary Morstan? They'll likely look into who is cashing the checks."

"You've got several fake identities, right?"

"You want to give me your money?"

"I don't know where this money is coming from," Mary reminded him. "And I honestly don't need it. I could set up a charity and put it there? Famous people have charities."

"Yes, famous dead people set up charities for themselves every day," Sherlock drawled.

"I'm not dead, honey," Mary said using her best Southern Belle accent. She switched back to her normal accent and said, "I'm just missing in action."

Sherlock was quiet for a long time. He pressed his palms together and created a steeple with his fingers. He rested his chin on his finger tips and set about to thinking. For the remainder of the time it took Mary to apply the goop his head he was silent.

"You still have access to your accounts as Kelia," Sherlock said quietly.

"You've got a half hour," Mary said instead of answering him.

"That is why no one was alarmed at the end of the day," Sherlock realized, turning to look at her. "You still withdraw money as Keila Kensington. That is why you've never been declared dead. How did I miss that?"

"I'm not as stupid as most clearly."

"You still access her account."

"Yes."

"Brilliant," Sherlock breathed.

His face took on a new light as he stared at her. Mary wondered if this what he looked like while he chased serial killers, as he looked honestly excited at the prospect of her having access to her Kelia Kensington accounts.

"I bet you have an account in…Switzerland," he went on. "Their banking laws would work well for you and they'd keep your secrecy in tact between your identities no matter what. Easy for you to go in person."

Mary quirked an eyebrow.

"Clever, Ms Kensington, clever," Sherlock breathed.

"Why are you so impressed? People do this sort of thing every day, Sherlock. People open accounts off shore, in Switzerland and elsewhere to set up new lives. Governments do it for witnesses, drug dealers to it for themselves, murders do it, criminals do it and then people like myself who just want to vanish and start over."

"I know, but…" Sherlock trailed off, still pressing his palms together. He was no longer pressing them lightly together, but hard. His thin hands were turning white.

"But what, Sherlock?"

"You're famous."

He turned himself to fully face her. Mary blinked.

"Famous people are harder to hide. Your face, you didn't alter it. People who really want to vanish get plastic surgery to alter their faces. You still have those lips, that nose and didn't alter your chest unnaturally."

"No, I did it naturally by gaining weight," Mary snapped. "What is your point?"

"You dyed your hair. Put in brown contacts and made yourself plainer," Sherlock said. "You're hidden in plain sight! Your accent has picked up hints of New Zealand, but it's still the bland English accent you've always sported. And the new tones are fading every day and taking on more posh tones, due to the fact you spend your days with public school educated people at least eight five percent of the time."

He stood up suddenly. A manic energy crackled around him. His eyes were huge, bright and dancing with excitement. Mary couldn't do anything other than stare at him with wide eyes.

"Why? You wanted out. You have no desire to go back to being Kelia. You hate Kelia Kensington."

"I hate myself?"

Sherlock scoffed, clasping his hands behind his back. He was wearing his Detective Face as Mary called it, and it looked so strange in his current condition— his head covered in smelly goop and wearing a plastic cape to protect his clothing.

"No. Kelia Kensington was never you," Sherlock pointed out. "The moment your mother dyed your hair to be blonder, made up your eyes to make them larger and bluer, and dressed you up in flashy clothing you became someone else. Kelia Kensington, while not the prettiest or most stunning looking actress in the world, was not plain."

Mary sighed, turning around. She did not need to hear again how plain she looked. Stalking out of the bathroom, she headed for the kitchen to make tea. Sherlock followed her, still talking.

"I'm not insulting you. You are not plain looking in any means. Society might overlook you as plain looking, but you are a very unique looking person."

"Ah, the kiss of death," Mary joked, filling the kettle with water. "While you don't want to look too cookie cutter, if you look too strange, you'll only be assigned character roles and get pigeon holed."

That was what her mother had told her. It was what she realized as she made her way through Hollywood.

"Oh, get your head out of that world, Mary," Sherlock scoffed. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. "You did not alter anything about your appearance that makes you and Kelia the same person that would be permanent. You dye your hair. You wear contacts. You gained some weight. But the things you were known for: lips and nose— those you did not alter."

"I have no clue where you are going with this."

"You want someone to figure out that you are Kelia Kensington. You hid in plain sight— granted the best place to hide. You kept your account as Kelia Kensington as Kelia Kensington."

"I make money as her still," Mary pointed out.

"So you file taxes as Kelia Kensington and Mary Morstan?"

Mary shifted a little, trying to get out of his grip.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are two different people," Mary pointed out.

"Still?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"I don't know! You're not a therapist! You didn't alter any of your physical features either! Just your freaking hair! You still have that cupid bow mouth, that nose, that chin, the cheekbones and those freaking eyes!"

"Ah, but Mary, I plan to go back to being Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street someday soon. You, though, never plan to go back to being Kelia Kensington."

He smirked at her.

"Fine. Shall I book a nose job tomorrow?" she snarked.

"Oh, Mary. Who are you waiting for?" Sherlock asked, his face taking on a totally different look. It softened, looking almost humane. His changeable eyes, today more blue than grey or green, scanned her slowly. They grew larger suddenly and he dropped his grip on her shoulders taking a step back. "Oh."

"What?"

"You're waiting for John," Sherlock said as if it was common knowledge.

"What?"

Mary felt confused. She had no idea how they had gotten on the topic of her and her self worth, her appearance, and now John all because some law firm had spent the past six months or so plastering posters all over looking for a vanished actress.

"You knew him," Sherlock realized, cocking his head to the side. "How?"

"I…I knew him as Keila," Mary said uneasily. "He doesn't know Mary. He flatly stated I'm not Kelia Kensington."

"Ah," Sherlock breathed, falling against the wall of the kitchen as the kettle boiled and whistled loudly.

Mary turned and fixed herself a cup of tea, not bothering to ask Sherlock if he wanted one. She swept into the lounge, only to remember it was covered in Sherlock's junk. She felt an irrational urge to rip everything off the walls, wad up the red string that crisscrossed the room and stomp on everything littering the floors.

It was her flat and the biggest room had been taken over by a man she hardly knew.

"When did you first meet John?" Sherlock wanted to know from behind her.

"I met him when I was eight," she said. "The second play I was in. His sister was in it as well. He told me my performance was great. I was great."

She stormed into her room to get away from Sherlock, but of course he followed her. He was persistent like a cockroach.

"Why do you even care?" she snapped, slamming her mug down on the bedside table. "This has nothing to do with your big case out there in the living room! It has nothing to do with anything that matters in your life! I'm just a way stop on the way to whatever!"

"Oh, Mary," Sherlock sighed, looking at her as if she was stupid. "You're an idiot."

"I KNOW!"

Mary collapsed in a heap on the bed, burying her face in her hands. She felt the bed dip as Sherlock sat down next to her.

"I care…a great deal about John," Sherlock said quietly, his voice wearing all the emotions he felt for John his face always lacked. Mary did not look up. "Mycroft told me he ran into you at the hospital. He saw your face when John flatly stated you weren't Kelia Kensington because he knew her. Mycroft figured you two had only met once, when you were on the USO tour. But, then the way you threw yourself into figuring out what happened, the way you figured out I wasn't dead…I knew it went deeper."

"I ran into him again when I was living in London, before I hit it big," Mary admitted quietly. "He lost my number."

"And you're still upset about that?" Sherlock asked, sounding confused.

"No. Well, I was for a good few months after he failed to call," Mary admitted, "but I met Reid and the rest as they say is history."

Sherlock was quiet for a long time. When Mary looked up, he was still sitting on her bed, staring into space, a forlorn look on his face.

"You miss him a lot," Mary said. "You know where he is?"

Sherlock nodded.

"Do you spy on him?"

Another nod.

"Is he doing better?"

"I'm not sure. He limps a little, but he hasn't resorted to using his cane like he was when I first met him."

Mary had no idea what he was talking about, but nodded.

"You love him?"

Sherlock looked up at her. She was sure he was going to look disgusted, sneer at her and tell her love was stupid and pointless and caring wasn't an advantage.

"Yes. Of course," he said as if she were really thick. "He's my best friend."

"And you died for him," Mary whispered, remembering why Sherlock Holmes was currently sitting on her bed.

"John is an amazing person," Sherlock stated in a matter of fact manner. "He has clearly effect us both in a similar way by simply telling us we were amazing."

Mary snorted. "I guess you could say that."

"The first time you met him, he told you that you were brilliant, didn't he?"

Mary nodded.

"I did a deduction in front on him. He said it was brilliant. And then further went on to express the sentiment each time I amazed him," Sherlock said. "No one had done that before him."

"What did they usually say?"

Sherlock looked at her, quirking an eyebrow. "Piss off."

Mary snorted. "Of course. Just like with me. Only, they didn't tell me to piss off."

"No, they always commented on how you could better your appearance," Sherlock scoffed. "Shallow."

"I know."

"I have never seen you act in anything," Sherlock admitted. "But, due to the awards you have won, you must have some sort of talent."

"Thanks," she muttered, looking at him sideways.

"John is back in town," Sherlock announced.

"Since when?"

"About two months ago. He's been following you around."

"What?" Mary screeched, leaping to her feet. "He's been stalking me?"

"Not stalking. Just following," Sherlock corrected, looking at her strangely. "He's asked Mrs Hudson not to mention he's returned to you, as he's still feeling you out. He's suspicious of you. He's been tracking your movements around the Yard and Baker Street. He's not very good, but it would be best if you stop talking to the cameras when I text you."

"I don't talk to them. I mouth at them," Mary corrected. "He's been following me?"

Mary knew she ought to be creeped out by this, but she wasn't. It filled her with a little bubbling feeling.

"I believe he is trying to figure something out. Or he has, yet refuses to accept it," Sherlock said. "Mycroft is sure John has figured you out and now is trying to figure out what you're up to."

"How did John decide now that I'm Kelia Kensington? I mean…"

"You've lost a bit more weight in the past year, so your face looks more like hers than it did the day I…fell."

"Are you trying to tell me I need to gain some weight?" Mary asked. Her pants were hanging rather low on her hips and not fitting as they used to. And her tops were bigger than normal. How had she not noticed?

"No. I'm not one to praise over eating or eating in general," Sherlock admitted. "It also might benefit you if he decides you are indeed Keila Kensington and does whatever he is planning to do. Now, I suggest we get a burner phone and create an email address and contact the law firm."

"What?" Mary asked, her head not moving as fast as Sherlock's to switch gears. "I thought your brother did that all ready?"

"I happen to have several phones and I am more than willing to offer you one. I also have an email address that you can use to email the law firm," Sherlock offered, standing up and stalking out of the room. "Hurry up! I need to get back to the important things!"

Mary frowned. "Sherlock! Why do you want me to contact them? They all ready sent me the check!"

Sherlock turned and stared at her. "Yes, they sent you a check. There was nothing else in that envelope. There was no explanation on why they sent you the check. It's from the actual law firm, not a person. It's…unsettling."

"Why are you even doing this? This has nothing to do with Moriarty/Brook."

Sherlock gave her a look.

"Seriously. Why are you even interested?"

Sherlock looked confused.

"This can't be…not boring."

"It's about a five," Sherlock admitted, still looking perplexed. "But, I happen to find you not boring and would like to clear this up to keep your attention on the more important things. There are still several cases Lestrade has failed to solve without my aid that you need to see to. I'm also closing in on Moran, thus the end game is going to be in play soon. It's actually a little easier now that John's back in London. Moran is in London. While people might think London offers more places to hide, I know London better than the countryside."

"Oh."

Mary felt somewhat sad it was almost over. And confused.

"John is also following you, so Moran is now tracking you," Sherlock informed her.

Mary's heart stuttered. She did't really understand most of the web Sherlock had drawn out over her living room, but Moran was at the center with Brook.

"John came back to London for you," Sherlock said in a soft voice. "This, by default, makes you interesting to me."

"You don't want him to find out?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, then what is it?"

Sherlock smirked and simply handed her a cell phone, told her he needed to think and sat down on the couch. Taking this as a dismissal, Mary retreated to her bedroom to compose her email to the law firm to inquire why they'd sent her a check for ten thousand pounds.


	9. Into Place After All

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews and follows. They're much appreciated. _

* * *

_Into Place After All…_

She operated like clockwork.

In the two months John had been back in London (living with the ghost of Sherlock Holmes in 221B Baker Street), one thing he learned about her was she was definitely a creature of habit— a timely creature of habit. She showed up for her weekly tea with Mrs Hudson at the same time almost down to the millisecond. She was always on time for work, taking care to plan around any hiccups the Underground system might have, even before anyone else seemingly knew about them.

If he hadn't know better, John would think Mycroft Holmes was letting her know traffic conditions.

The only thing that John was unable to predict was when Lestrade would call her in. He did know the signs when Lestrade had requested her presence, as when she'd appear at the Kensington Tube stop, she was almost alway carrying her cheap cell phone in one hand texting away and munching on a chocolate bar.

This was also when she'd tend to mouth off at CCTV.

John wasn't so stalkerish he followed her to work or home. Only Tube stops. He knew she worked somewhere around the Kensington Tube stop, mostly deduced from what Lestrade had told him about running into her around an M&S in Kensington on the high street. It'd taken a few tries before he'd seen her at the station. He followed her till she left the tube system at a station in Hackney.

Then he went home.

He didn't follow her to her final stop often. He did tend to stick himself around the Kensington stop around the time she got off for work, though. Just to see if she went to the Yard or not.

On days she went to the Yard after work, he'd follow to the actual Yard and hang out in a near by coffee shop till she passed on her way to the Tube to head home. Then he accosted Lestrade to find out what she was doing.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Lestrade asked on sunny day in June.

"No."

"Why ever not?"

"I…I'm not ready."

"For what? To talk to her?" Lestrade asked. "Or ask her if she's Kelia Kensington."

John jerked suddenly, staring at the man with a bemused expression.

"I'm not a complete idiot," Lestrade reminded John. "After that night in the pub, I started looking at her and I can see it. I mean, if she lost a stone or so…Man, I feel like a creep for saying that."

"No, I know what you mean," John said, holding up his hand to stop Lestrade from speaking further. "She was there, Greg. She standing a few feet from me when…he died."

Lestrade made a face of realization. "Oh. Okay."

"She knows what happened. She knows what I can't remember," John whispered. "The whole day was a total blur from the moment he rang off. I get flashes. Horrible…"

John trailed off, closing is eyes tightly.

"S'alright mate," Lestrade said comfortingly, placing a large hand on John's shoulder.

The pair were silent for a moment.

"Maybe it'd help to hear what happened?" Lestrade suggested, dropping his hand. "She did follow you from the spot you were standing to, well, till you were whisked off by the nurses at St. Bart's."

John hummed his agreement.

"It'd be easy to just run into her," Lestrade suggested, walking around his desk and grabbing his coat. "And if you do it soon, I won't write you up."

"Excuse me?" John asked, head snapping up.

"I know you mean her no harm, John, but you've been following her," Lestrade informed him. "You know her schedule and you always show up right after she's left here, so…"

"Used your copper skills, then," John grumbled, face heating up.

"Maybe," Lestrade offered, wearing an infuriating smile. "Now, bugger off. I'm going home to drown in take out leftovers."

* * *

John figured he could "run into" Mary when she showed up for her tea with Mrs Hudson. He did live there, it was logical he could run into her on the stairs when she showed up at eleven on the dot.

It didn't happen, that way, though.

John made a choice on Saturday. A mundane choice.

He decided he needed to get out of the flat, out of his usual neighborhoods and do something. While it was getting easier all the time to be in the flat with the tangent reminders of Sherlock littered all over, John wanted to physically do something, go somewhere he hadn't in a very long while.

John had lived in London for years, but hadn't hit the tourists spots as an adult. As a kid, he'd seen them on trips to the city, but since becoming an adult, he'd scoffed at playing tourist in his own town. So, on a Saturday morning, he left the flat and took the Tube to Westminster and joined the hoards of tourists enjoying his city. He walked from the Tube to St James' Park and walked through the park till he came out in front of the Palace.

He'd had tea at the Palace. A lifetime ago.

Deciding he needed to face the memories head on— it'd been a year— John walked to the Victoria Memorial and sat down, joining the tourists lingering on a bright, sunny Saturday morning. John had brought with him Sherlock's discarded net-book (replaced by a faster, larger Macbook). Opening it up, he called up a blank Word file and decided to write memories. His therapist was forever telling him he ought to try writing again.

"Remember the good things," she told him more times than John cared to count.

Balancing the small laptop on his knees he started hunting and pecking on the keyboard, remembering smaller things about his tea at the Palace he'd left out of his blog post on The Woman. The little things, things that no one else would care to hear about or notice. John became entrenched in his typing and did not notice the comings and goings of the people around him, the changing of the guard or anything till he heard a low, but loud voice shout, "MARY!"

John's head snapped up.

A lot of time had passed, the crowd was definitely swelling around John as it was early afternoon, but above the usual noise, the voice shot through and wrapped around John.

"MARY!"

John's eyes quickly found the shouting man behind him working his way to cross the street. The man was blond, tall and dressed in clothing that clearly stated he was not local, yet maybe not a tourist. An American if John had to hazard a guess by his choice of clothing.

"MORSTAN!" the man hollered, causing many people to turn and stare at him.

The trendy American broke through the crowd, jumped the fence— pausing only to wait for traffic to clear up— and darted across the road for a woman standing on the other side of the street. The woman paused, looking confused and then alarmed as the taller man vaulted another fence to get to her.

John slammed his laptop shut and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat. He pushed his way through the crowd. He didn't jump the fence, but hurried for the crosswalk. He did not want to draw attention to himself as the man had. John glanced back behind him and noted the two people were still on the sidewalk, having what appeared to be a serious discussion.

John made it across the street and to the other side in record time. Once he was across the street he noticed the pair were walking, arms hooked together. The man was bent down so he could hear the woman, his blond curly hair bouncing as he shook his head over and over.

The pair turned and headed into the park. John headed that way as well, hoping they'd walk slowly so he could catch up and not overheat. The day had grown warm while John had been lost inside his head and his coat was no longer needed.

Sure enough, the couple was ambling along and John easily paced himself behind them, hoping he was putting on a good show of trying not to eavesdrop.

"I can't believe you," the woman said, her accent almost American.

Was there more than one Mary Morstan? John hadn't gotten a good look at the woman, but she had short dark hair and looked like the woman John had been keeping track of.

"I am rather unbelievable," the low almost familiar voice said. John would have freaked out completely if the man hadn't clearly been American. Closer, the man looked more painfully American than he had before. He wore faded, beat-up on purpose jeans, a t-shirt that also looked like it'd been through the ringer and sneakers. On his thin wrist, he had a selection of trendy looking woven bracelets mixed in with a wristwatch. On his face were the trendiest, ugliest sunglasses John the misfortune of seeing.

Sherlock would never have worn any of that. Ever.

And his hair. It was painfully clear the man dyed his hair blond. And he might have curled it, as it was in tight curls bouncing all over.

The man was trying too hard to be trendy. It hurt John to even look at the guy.

"You are. You so are," the woman agreed. "So, what do you want that it required you to make a spectacle of yourself? Granted, it's been almost a year since you've had a chance…"

John's ears perked up.

The couple stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

John quickly darted behind a tree, feeling extremely foolish. He was acting like a teenage girl caught following her crush.

"You weren't at the apartment."

"Uh, no," the woman agreed, sounding confused. "I didn't know you were going to show up. And you usually show up in the middle of the night."

"I don't always show up in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's afternoon," the man pointed out. "It's important. And I guess I couldn't wait."

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Don't kill me for trying to be normal for five-seconds, Sher..man."

"Please don't call me that," the man snapped.

"Are you having a name crisis?" she teased, though there was something in her tone that told John she'd made a mistake at some point.

Sherman wasn't named Sherman.

John poked his head out from around the tree and noticed they were still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, people going around them and not bothering to notice much more than the fact they were blocking the way. The woman had her back to John, but John was sure it was Mary Morstan, as the beat up leather bag slug across her body was kind of one of a kind. The fact she was speaking with a faint American accent was a little confusing, though.

"Yes. I found him. Like really found him," the man insisted, looking intense and giddy.

John blinked several times.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. When I am I ever joking?" the man snapped in a familiar manner, even if in an American accent.

John felt like he'd fallen into and episode of _The Twilight Zone_.

"And you're telling me because…?"

The taller man blinked and straightened up, his face making it clear he thought it was obvious why he was telling her.

John knew that expression well.

John took in the man's face and appearance once more, looking more carefully this time and passed all the outward trendy items used to distract someone from looking closer.

The blond hair was curly, curlier than Sherlock's natural hair. It was almost a little shorter than Sherlock usually chose to wear his hair, more than likely due to the tightness of the curls. The man, if he was Sherlock, was somewhat tan (as he was playing an American, so it made sense) and gained a few pounds somehow. There was a nasty looking cut on the bare arm that was holding Mary in place. It was ugly, red and twisted right up his forearm. It was new.

John wished the man wasn't wearing the ugly trendy sunglasses, as he'd love to see the eyes. But, even from a distance, John could make out those cheekbones, even if they weren't standing out as much as they used to. As the man continued to stare at the woman, John glanced at the rest of the face, taking in the man's nose, chin and mouth closely.

If the man wasn't Sherlock, he had to be a close Holmes relative.

"Honestly, Mary, how do you live with that tiny brain," the man who had to be Sherlock Holmes scoffed, dropping his hand from her arm.

"I keep telling you I'm an idiot, Sherman," she snapped, putting her hands on her hips.

"You're not that big of an idiot," the man said, a sigh in his tone. "You're interesting."

"I am not."

"Shut up."

"No."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I think we're being watched."

"Of course we are. We live in London, you moron," she reminded him.

Wait, the Sherlock lookalike lived with Mary?

"We're clearly Americans. We do not live in London," the man murmered, his head moving a little as he scanned the area without looking like he was scanning the area.

John quickly ducked behind the tree. If the man was Sherlock, he'd all ready noticed John so it was pointless, as John had been too slow to hide himself for Sherlock Holmes.

It took John a moment to realize his heart was beating out of control and he wasn't sure if he was breathing any longer. Had the world ended? Was he dreaming? Was this actually happening? Had he lost his mind?

He had lost his mind.

That man wasn't Sherlock.

Sherlock was dead. And British.

He wasn't going to come back. Or return as a trendy American.

Oh, how John wished Sherlock would pull of a miracle and it was him standing a little ways away from John in a park in London on a Saturday afternoon.

"No, brother of mine is not watching us. Nor the last spider," the man said, his voice lowering a little.

John frowned.

"Oh," the woman said, seemingly realizing it was serious.

There was a long moment of silence, the only noise coming from the other people in the world and the city.

"Sherman, might it be best to get a move on it?" the woman asked, her voice suddenly much more American than before. "We…we've got to make the two o'clock tour!"

"You are not pulling this off," the man whispered.

"Like anyone is listening," she grumbled, loosing the American accent completely.

"And they gave you awards," the man muttered. Then sharply inhaled. "You kicked me."

"I did. Don't mock my mad skills," she said, very serious. And in a completely different accent. John couldn't place it at all.

The man sniffed indignantly.

The moments stretched on. John was sure they were walking, as they were no longer speaking to one another.

John remained where he was till he chanced it and opened his eyes. The couple was walking back the way they'd come, arms hooked, only this time the man was standing tall and looking around. Their backs were to John, but John was in full view now. The couple was about a fifty meters away from where John was standing when the man turned around and locked eyes with John.

John froze.

The man had removed his sunglasses. They were on his head, pushing his hair back and straight up.

Even with the tan, the little added weight, there was no denying that man was Sherlock Holmes.

He had the eyes, those impossible eyes that even from a distance told you that you were stupid.

The woman turned and looked behind her, trying to figure out what Sherlock was looking at.

The woman was definitely Mary Morstan.

Sherlock turned around and hustled Mary out of the park, while she attempted to protest.

John sunk to the ground.

His brain shorted out.

* * *

"He saw us," Sherlock hissed, still using his American accent.

"Who? What are you going on about?" Mary asked in her own accent.

"John."

"What? I did what you told me!" Mary said. "Not that I thought you'd show up like you did. I was supposed to meet you the cafe."

"Which was right next to a Tube stop," Sherlock hissed, steering her down towards The Mall.

"Well, it was nice, I wanted to walk," Mary complained. "What were you doing running across the memorial shouting my name? Did you know he was there?"

"No. I didn't notice him. I did notice you," Sherlock admitted, looking upset with himself. "I went to the apartment to tell you the good news. You weren't there. I knew you'd gone ahead to the cafe, but it was nice, so you'd want to do walking. Only, I took a cab to the park, while you got off at Embankment— as if you got of at St James, one might think you were going to Scotland Yard— and walked down."

"You passed me in the cab," Mary deduced.

"Hmmm," Sherlock hummed, still steering her through the people walking down the sidewalk. "It dropped me off on the other side, so I made a scene to alert my brother I was here and out."

"True. You don't do public much here," Mary admitted. "Is that safe?"

"Why do you think I'm dressed in such trendy clothing and talking like a Californian," Sherlock scoffed.

"Sorry, honey bee, that's not California," Mary teased, switching into a Californian accent. "You're doing classic Midwestern."

Sherlock scoffed, but said nothing more till they ended up near Trafalgar Square.

"All this walking, I want my promised meal," Mary blurted out. "And you need to continue to eat if you plan to keep the weight on you've put on since I last saw you. What'd you do, eat a bunch of butter?"

"Isn't that what Americans eat?" Sherlock inquired, glancing down at her as he steered her across the crosswalks and down Whitehall.

"Uh, no. Most do not eat straight butter," Mary said, slightly worried Sherlock had been living off butter the past few months.

"I ate a rounded diet of foods rich in fat," Sherlock said. "And…"

"Went tanning?"

"No. Spray tan. Tanning," Sherlock scoffed.

"Looks….strange. But at least you're not orange," Mary said quietly as they made their way down the street. "Where are we going?"

"The Clarence," Sherlock replied. "Filled with tourists, likely, loud and perfect to hide as Americans. Well, I look American. Tragically, you look horribly English today."

"Oh, shut up," Mary said, slugging him in the side. "I am English. Can't you hear it?" They waked a few paces before she asked, "So, the eyes you felt? They belonged to John? What was he doing there?"

"I have no idea," Sherlock admitted gravely. "Maybe he wanted to get out and go somewhere he never goes?"

"Perchance," Mary allowed as they entered a loud, classic English pub. Once they were seated in a booth, Mary leaned across and asked, "You really found him? Tracked the moron to where you can get him?"

"Moron," Sherlock snickered. "Yes. He's actually taken up residence across the street from our mutual friend."

"Greg?"

"No."

"He is your friend. And mine."

"The other one," Sherlock said, giving her a look.

"I don't know him," Mary insisted, suddenly feeling like a bunch of butterflies were going off in her stomach. She shook her head. "What are you going to do?"

"Do?"

"John."

"I'm not doing John," Sherlock attempted to joke. At the look on her face he asked, "Isn't that how an American would joke?"

"I don't know," Mary admitted. "It's been a while since I've been there."

"You lived there for almost six years," Sherlock pointed out.

"Aye, but clung to me Britishness," Mary said, using a Cockney accent.

"Eh," Sherlock scoffed, looking at his menu. "What do you Brits like, then?"

Mary quirked an eyebrow at him. "Fish and chips. What's the plan, Sherman?"

Sherlock looked up at her with a look that told her to pick a different name.

"Dude?"

He glared.

"It was the only name I could think to cover up my slip," Mary defended herself in reference to 'Sherman.' She reached into her pocket and pulled out the high tech phone Sherlock had given her and fired up the Internet. "Let's see. What else could I have called you? Sherborne. Sherill. Sheridan. Sherman. Shermarke. Sherrerd. Sherrick. Sherwin. I like that. Sherwin."

He continued to glare at her. Mary smirked and went back to her phone.

"Sherwood. Ah. Sherwood. That's what I ought to have called you," she teased, shoving the phone back into her pocket. "So, Sherwood, what is your plan and why did you want to speak to me in public?"

Sherlock pressed his lips together and pulled his sunglasses off the top of his head and jammed them onto his face. Mary thought for a moment he was going to storm out on her, but he folded his arms and looked the picture of huffy, spoiled brat.

"I'm done."

"Done with what? Dealing with me? Socializing with me? Putting up with my crazy?"

"With the case," Sherlock corrected. "I'm hungry."

"Ah. Gotten used to eating, haven't you?"

"Shut it," Sherlock snapped, shoving the sunglasses up into his hair, disrupting the curls that might have taken him hours to put in his hair.

"Do you wear rollers?" Mary heard herself asking studying his hair closer.

Sherlock ignored her and said, "I'm going to approach Greg."

His voice was serious while he pretended to read the menu.

"And? You're going to whack him with a frying pan?" Mary lamely attempted to joke.

While part of her was cheering the end of was in sight and she'd reclaim her living room, there was another part of her that was sad it was coming to an end. Mary had been alone for six years, living on her own and only doing a limited amount of socializing. Having Sherlock fall out of the sky and into her flat had awaken something within Mary.

For some odd reason, she wanted to reconnect to the human race and yet the she'd done it all wrong.

She'd inserted herself into Sherlock's old life. Her social circle, if she could even call it that, contained Mrs Hudson, Lestrade and Donovan. And Sherlock himself.

None of them would need her once Sherlock returned to being Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.

"Yes. I'm planning to take the pan you never use. The blue one," Sherlock snarked, still not looking up from the menu. "The moron knows the network has been disabled and is in chaos. He knows he's the last left who had a directive from the spider. My brother dealt with the faux one, but made Greg swear to say nothing."

"Brilliant," Mary said as the waiter showed up.

After placing their orders for fish and chips (Sherlock played up his American tourist role by acting like an idiot at the thought of having classic English fish and chips in an English pub), Sherlock gave Mary a detailed overview in code on his plan to deal with Moran. Luckily, Mary had spent the past year trying to figure out what Sherlock was talking about when he was speaking normally, so following his strange code was stupidly easy.

"My life is so bizarre," Mary mumbled after they'd gotten their food.

"If you say so," Sherlock said, staring at the fried fish and chips. "I know what you're thinking."

"Oh, you do, Oh Wise One? And what's that?"

"You're afraid for your life to go back to predictable and boring," Sherlock answered, picking up a bottle of vinegar and looking at it in a perplexed manner. "Don't you guys use ketchup? Why isn't there a bottle on the table? What's this for?"

He waved the bottle of vinegar in her face.

"For the chips and fish," Mary said, frowning at him.

"Gross," Sherlock sneered, slamming the bottle down on the table. He picked up a bottle of brown sauce and sniffed it. "Can't a guy get some ketchup?"

The waiter appeared with a bowl of ketchup packets and set it on the table, rolling his eyes deeply at Sherlock.

"Thanks, dude," Sherlock said, giving a lazy smile that would have fit a surfer.

"Ta," the guy said, quickly leaving.

"You're annoying," Mary grumbled. "And a total embarrassment. Remind me never to be seen with you in public."

Sherlock snickered, glancing up at her before going back to his meal.

"You really need to go into acting," Mary whispered, tucking into her own meal.

"Boring," Sherlock said, a hint of his own accent hanging in the word. He dumped three packets of ketchup on top of the chips. "I learned to like this in Chicago."

"When were you in Chicago?"

"Before I met you. Illinois is a highly criminalized state," Sherlock offered. "I was there quite some time dismantling things."

"Really," Mary commented. "Spider had a presence in the state, then?"

"Yup," Sherlock said, stuffing a chip into his mouth. "Have you ever had a Chicago hot dog?"

"No. When I lived in LA, I didn't eat much," Mary groused. "I take it you liked it?"

"I had one on my way out, since I was done," Sherlock offered, cutting into his fish. "It was good. Not sure why. It looked disgusting."

Mary snorted.

They passed the rest of the meal pretending to be normal (Sherlock an American tourist and Mary his long suffering British friend) and then left the pub. Taking his arm, Mary asked, "When are you going to let John know for real that you're here?"

"After the Moron is no longer a moron," Sherlock replied.

"So, a few days. Then what?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. He was rather shocked in the park," Sherlock admitted. "I'll have to remain…Sherman/Sherwood till that point in time since he's seen me with you. And he is tracking you still."

"Does the Moron know?"

"Know what?"

"You're back in town, Sherwood."

"No. The Moron currently believes I'm an annoying American tourist who happens to know you. Thankfully, he doesn't know the horrific names you've given me. Oh, Moron knows who you really are, as well."

"Bloody hell. Why didn't—"

"Not important," Sherlock insisted. "He won't matter in a few days."

They walked in silence to a near by Tube stop. The silence continued until they reached the flat. Sherlock came to a stop outside the main door and tugged on her arm.

"What?"

"What if he is mad?"

"Then you apologize until he listens," Mary replied. "You coming in?"

"Of course."

It was almost a relief when they got inside the flat and Sherlock ceased to be American, quickly reverting to himself.

"If he won't…if he refuses to let me stay, is it all right if I return here to use your couch?"

Mary felt her stomach flutter, roll over and calm down all at the same time. Sherlock looked unsure and timid, yet more himself than he'd been the past two hours since he'd caught up with her outside the park. Yet, she had never seen him unsure or timid in his life.

He was worried.

"Of course, Sherlock," she told him, shaking her head. "You're always welcome here. You and all your crazy."

Sherlock snorted. "I am not crazy."

"Yeah, yeah you are. Did you see what you're wearing?"

His nose wrinkled in disgust. "By far the worst disguise I've worn since I began this foolishness. I am showering. Oh, then we can discuss the fact the law firm has been ignoring your requests for more information on the money. Did you cash the check?"

"No. It's still in the drawer. I figured I won't do anything with it till they give me a straight answer. I don't know where that money came from," Mary reminded Sherlock.

Pressing his lips together and cocking his head to the side, Sherlock regarded her for a moment before he stalked out of the room. Mary sank down into the couch and stared at the web above her head. In the center of the room was a spot for Sebastian Moran, still no photo. Just a black smilie face.

For some odd reason, this made Mary giggle up a storm.


	10. Almost Over

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_Almost Over…_

Dressed in his trendy American clothing for the second day in a row, Sherlock looked truly and utterly ridiculous. Especially since his hair was no longer as curly as it had been and was an utter disaster. Mary was half embarrassed to bring him into the Yard and introduce him as her friend. She really wanted him to simply remain in the flat and do something about his hair.

Sherlock was insistent he go along with her when she went to aid Lestrade in nailing his recent murder inquiry, though. And when Sherlock wanted something, Sherlock usually got it. They wasted about thirty minutes arguing with one another over the state of his hair before he finally shouted, "I'll wear a damn hat!"

"I don't even know why you want to go!"

"I must go! I have to get Lestrade to be there tonight!" Sherlock shouted from the loo, accompanied by a loud crash of hair products falling into the tub.

"I thought you were wearing a hat?" Mary asked.

"Clearly," Sherlock announced, appearing in front of her, wearing a fedora which looked utterly wrong on his head. "Don't look at me like that. You did not have a large choice of hats to choose from."

"That's my hat?" Mary asked, wondering what on earth that had was doing in her wardrobe.

"Obviously. I did not bring one," Sherlock scoffed.

"You do realize you look like a complete berk, right?"

Sherlock scowled at her.

"And you do realize you're going to be seeing Lestrade and Donovan dressed like that, right?"

"They won't realize it is me," Sherlock insisted. "I'm your American friend, Sherman Sherwood, as you amply named me yesterday."

The thought of Lestrade and Donovan finding out Sherman Sherwood was in fact Sherlock Holmes made Mary a little giddy. Neither copper would allow Sherlock to hear the end of the time he showed up at Scotland Yard with more brands plastered to his person than a billboard wearing a stupid hat. It was this image of the two laughing at Sherlock's glowering face that allowed Mary to exit the flat with the blond, curly haired, fedora wearing faux-American in overly trendy clothing.

* * *

Since Mary visited NSY as often as she did, she no longer had to wait around for someone to come escort her. Even with her American tagalong, the girl at the front desk waved her in saying, "He's all ready phoned. Head on up."

She then winked at Sherlock, who gave her a flirty smile back and tipped his hat—all part of his character.

Mary took another look at Sherlock and began to wonder if she simply thought he looked ridiculous because she knew this was not how he usually appeared. Granted, she'd never seen him as Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective in person, but there was something about each disguise she'd seen that had a little of the real Sherlock to it.

Except this get up.

Mary began to feel a bit nervous as they neared the lifts. It struck her suddenly a lot was going on today— more than simply putting the most recently caught murderer behind bars. Something very large and important depended on a lot of variables in order to proceed. These variable could change, alter or go sour at any given moment and the whole operation would go up in a poof of smoke.

Or the butterflies in her stomach might be due to the fact Sherlock (dead man walking) was strolling through Scotland Yard while whistling a jaunty tune she was pretty sure Sherlock would never be caught dead knowing.

Why did he even want to come along? Couldn't he have called in a tip or something to get Lestrade and crew to show up where ever Sebastian Moran was located? He'd done that in the past— what was different about now?

Sherlock's disguise as an American was good, but you could still tell it was him if you really knew him—like say Donovan or Lestrade knew Sherlock Holmes.

John Watson had figured it out— if Sherlock's panic and the look on the older man's face at the park were any indication.

Panic flooded Mary's system.

"We can't do this! They'll know it's you! You don't have contacts! And you can still see your cheekbones!" Mary hissed at Sherlock, who cast her a baneful look and turned away as the doors dinged open to reveal Donovan.

He was still whistling.

"There you are," Donovan said, giving Mary a look. "Been waiting fifteen minutes. Oh, who is this?"

Donovan's gaze went over Mary's shoulder to Sherlock, who promptly finished the song and fell silent.

"Didn't know you finally got yourself a date," Donovan teased.

Mary gave her a small smile. "Just a friend visiting."

"Sherwood. My mom liked Robin Hood a little too much," Sherlock said in his American accent, pushing Mary out of the way to get to Donovan. He shook her hand; huge smile plastered across his face and large sunglasses still on obscuring his eyes. He gave Donovan's hand a firm shake as Mary righted herself.

"Nice to meet you, Sherwood," Donovan said slowly, looking as if she was slightly afraid of Sherlock.

"I just wanted to see this place. You see it on TV all the time on those British cop shows they show on PBS."

Donovan blinked.

"And it always looks different. Like no one knows what it really looks like," he went on, speaking quickly, his gaze wavering from Donovan to take in the hallway behind her. "Ya know?"

He peered at Donovan good naturally, appearing as if he was waiting for her to explain.

Donovan cocked her head to the side and stared.

"So, who are you?" Sherlock finally asked. "What do you do here?"

He was like an eager puppy all of a sudden.

"Detective Sergeant Donovan," she said stiffly. "I do detective work."

"Cool."

"I guess you could wait in Detective Inspector Lestrade's office while Morstan…does her thing. You can't join us."

"Okay. That's fine. Where to?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

He waited pleasantly for Donovan to direct him.

After showing Sherlock to the office and telling him not to touch anything, he sat down in the guest chair and kicked back, staring around with his hands placed behind his head. Donovan gave Mary another look and stalked off towards the interview rooms where Lestrade was waiting.

* * *

"Thanks," Lestrade said, leading Mary back towards his office. "So, did you really bring a fella?"

"Well, he is a man. Or man child," Mary corrected. "He insisted. He's in town…for a few days. He's…American."

"I gathered that," Lestrade laughed. "Does he know what you do for us?"

"Yes. He only wanted to see the inside of the building," Mary explained as Lestrade threw the door open to the office.

Sherlock leapt to his feet and whirled around with grace his American character lacked. He wasn't wearing the sunglasses any longer, having hung them from the collar of his shirt, and the hat had been removed to reveal his half curly, half wavy and mostly plastered to his head hair.

For a second, Sherlock wore a look of surprise on his face for some unknown reason and was every inch Sherlock Holmes till he snapped back into his character.

"Hi," Sherlock said in his American accent, moving his plastered hair around his head. "Sorry, kind drifted off there. I'm—"

"Bloody hell," Lestrade breathed.

Mary looked up at the older man staring at Sherlock with wide eyes and a slightly gaping mouth.

Yeah, Greg Lestrade knew who he was looking at.

Lestrade took a few timid steps forward, his hand slowly reaching up to touch the frozen Sherlock Holmes.

"Uh…" Mary said, looking to Sherlock for help, but Sherlock was only looking at Lestrade as if he was seeing the older man for the first time. There was a look in Sherlock's eyes Mary had never seen before and was having difficulty placing.

However, the American character had fallen away to be replaced by Sherlock Holmes.

In the back of Mary's mind, she marveled at his ability to create characters, become the character and yet be able to drop a well done character with so much ease. She always had a hard time separating herself from a character she had crafted so well.

Lestrade raised a hand up and lightly touched Sherlock's face with this thumb, tracing the younger man's left cheekbone. He took a few more steps closer to Sherlock and placed his whole hand on Sherlock's left cheek.

"You're really here?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied in his own accent.

"So, she was right," Lestrade stated. "And you…jumped…"

"You, John, Mrs Hudson."

"And you're back now?"

"Almost."

"Almost."

"Need your help."

"My help."

"Dangerous man, more dangerous than the one Mycroft took off your hands."

"She knew?"

"She's been helping me," Sherlock admitted. "She figured it out as she told you, but Mycroft didn't tell her to piss off. He wanted to, but I had use for her."

"You had use for her."

"To help you. As I could not."

"So, you just used her?"

"No," Sherlock said, frowning suddenly. He cocked his head to the side, which only caused his face to be placed more firmly in Lestrade's palm. "She has a valuable skill. I knew she'd be of use to you. I asked her to do this and she agreed."

"You're really here?"

"Yes, Lestrade."

The two men were close enough to one another there was hardly any space between them.

Mary felt like she was intruding on a private moment, so she took a few steps backwards and let herself out of the office. She pulled the door closed and headed for one of the empty cubicles. She sat down and glanced back at the window walled office to find Lestrade and Sherlock wrapped around one another, Sherlock's head buried in Lestrade's shoulder.

Shrugging, she turned back around.

* * *

Mary did not turn around again till she heard the door open. At the noise, she turned in the desk chair to find a slightly disheveled Sherlock emerge alone. He straightened his shirt, ran his hand across his mouth and fussed with the hat.

He appeared to be somewhat confused.

"Er, Sherwood?"

Sherlock startled and stared at Mary a moment. He patted the hat again, pulling it further down.

Mary stood up, slinging her bag over her head, trying to figure out if something else had happened in that office for the past quarter hour other than Sherlock telling Lestrade the plan of action for that night.

"So, Sherwood, what did you think of New Scotland Yard?"

She asked the question loudly, as Donovan and another officer walked into the bullpen at that moment. Donovan narrowed her eyes as she caught sight of Sherlock, who quickly stuck the stupid sunglasses back over his trademark eyes. He tipped the front of his hat back a bit and seamlessly fell into character.

"Cool," he said. "I don't know why they don't build their sets to match what it really looks like. That guy answered my questions too. Very cool."

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans, Sherlock strode passed Donovan—shooting her a flirty grin. Mary scrambled after him, only catching up when they got to the elevators. Sherlock was jamming his finger into the down button as if it'd insulted him and he was getting his revenge. Mary remained silent as the door dinged open and they road down. She continued her quest for silence until Sherlock exploded right before they reached the Tube station.

"What happened!?" Sherlock shouted in his American accent. He ripped his hat off and shoved it at Mary so he could tug at his wildly messed up hair with both hands.

"Uh, you seemed to…uh, you hugged?" Mary asked, pushing Sherlock down the stairs towards the trains. "I wasn't aware you two were—"

"We're not!" Sherlock shouted loudly. "Never…he's….he's….he's just my Detective Inspector!"

A few people turned and peered at the clearly mental American having a melt down.

Mary was equally bewildered.

"Okay. Did you do more than hug one another?" Mary inquired, still steering Sherlock through the station towards the right line. Luckily, due to the volume of Sherlock's mental breakdown, people were easily getting out of their way. "Who kissed who?"

"No kissing. I hugged him," Sherlock squeaked.

Mary wasn't sure if he was play-acting being freaked out or if he actually was freaked out. Something told Mary if he weren't playing this stupid American character he wouldn't be sharing anything with her at the moment. Sherlock Holmes did not seem the type of man to have a conversation like this in public, let alone at all. If anything, Sherlock would go silent, press his hands together and have a good long think. He'd draw his own conclusions and then dash off to do something about it or ignore it till it went away.

Something in that hard drive in his head had short circuited— therefore a public freak out.

"Well, okay. That's what people do sometimes— hug one another."

"Yes."

"Do you find that strange?"

"Yes! Clearly! Why did he huge me! No, wait, why did I hug him. He didn't hug me, I hugged him."

"Well, what's the problem?"

"He's straight!" Sherlock shrieked rather loudly. Several people stared and glared at Mary, who hurried Sherlock along.

Mary was not following Sherlock's thought process at all.

"Did you miss him?"

Sherlock fell silent and stared at Mary.

"You easily admitted you loved John because he was your best friend," Mary tried. "Are you telling me you wouldn't hug John after something traumatic?"

Sherlock tilted his head to the side, but said nothing. He continued to stare at Mary as if she had just said something in a language Sherlock failed to speak.

The train roared into the station and Sherlock turned forward, a blank expression on his face. Mary had to push him into the car and into a seat. He was seemingly unaware of the outside world. Mary fell into the seat next to him and allowed him to mull things over. This was more like how she assumed Sherlock Holmes would behave in the given circumstances— though why he was so freaked out by the fact he'd hugged someone was a little unnerving.

"I've always…I don't do this," Sherlock admitted once they'd left the Tube system and were ambling down the street. "I never — he was married. We worked together. He brings the cases, I solve them. I don't think I even shook his hand when we met."

"Sher—Sherwood, did you ever wonder if at some point your relationship with Lestrade had changed from working into friendship?"

"I would never hug John," Sherlock stated flatly.

"Why not?"

"I don't do sentiment and caring," Sherlock scoffed, crossing his arms.

"I think you do. The spider wanted to burn the heart out of you. Who'd he choose to do this with?"

"His wife cheated on him. Constantly," Sherlock bitterly announced, shoving his hands into his pockets and blindly following Mary along the road. He stared at his feet as if they were a pair of Rembrandt's words of art.

Mary assumed he was speaking of Lestrade and not Brook.

"I'm not sure what this has to do with the fact you hugged him," Mary quietly admitted, completely lost.

Sherlock turned his face back to his feet, scowling at his feet.

"What do you plan to do?"

"I don't…this is not my area."

"What is your area?" Mary asked, opening the door to the salon.

"The work," Sherlock said. "Can…what…"

Sherlock trailed off, suddenly realizing Mary was holding open a door for him.

"Last time I had to fix your hair," Mary began, looking carefully at Sherlock. "This time, Marc will fix your head and put you right. Don't you want to return to the living looking like, well, you?"

Sherlock blinked owlishly a few times as he pushed the shades up onto his head. In a fraction of a second, he pulled himself together and walked with ease into the salon, fully falling back into the flirty, annoying version of his American character.

* * *

"You know, you look kind of like that internet detective who offed himself," Marc commented, staring at Sherlock's reflection in the mirror. He ran his fingers through the waves that appeared in Sherlock's hair as it'd dried.

Upon being faced with the hair disaster of Sherman Sherwood, Marc had merrily dyed the ugly blonde hair a rich chocolate brown and snipped the hair off and into a style that looked similar to how Sherlock Holmes had worn, all the while going on how the style would accent his facial features.

And sitting in the chair in the black cape, Sherlock really looked like, well, himself finally— granted with a little fuller face. The hair style really did seem to accent those cheekbones and the color made him look pale again— even though Mary knew he was still sporting his faux tan.

"I get that sometimes," Sherlock said in his American accent. He ran a hand through his own hair, disrupting the style Marc had arranged the hair with his own fingers. "Been awhile since I've seen my natural hair. The blond wasn't working."

"Nor the curls," Marc commented darkly while Mary held in a snort of laughter. "Just keep it dark and natural, all right, honey?"

"Sure," Sherlock laughed in character. "Y'know, I just wanted to recapture my youth. Stupid, I know."

"What? You were going for Justin Timberlake circa 'N Sync?"

"Uh, yeah," Sherlock flatly answered.

Marc shook his head, loosening the cape and uncovering Sherlock with a flourish. Still dressed in his American get up, Sherlock stopped looking so much like Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and went back to looking vaguely like Sherman Sherwood, American Tourist.

Sherlock cheerily thanked and praised Marc as he settled the bill. Hooking his arm with Mary, Sherlock steered her out of the salon and onto the busy afternoon streets of Hackney. He put his outrageous sunglasses back on and held Mary close to his side.

"You must remain in the flat and in the kitchen till I text you tonight," Sherlock said in a low tone as they walked the streets. "Since Moron knows you interest John, he might have someone watching you."

"I assumed he would all ready have someone on me if John was following me."

"Good. I knew you weren't a total idiot," Sherlock said. "I doubt he'd do a thing to you. I bet he thinks John is too stupid to realize who you really are and maybe you just look like you."

Mary nodded, allowing Sherlock to steer her through the streets.

"So, why am I hiding again?"

"Once he knows we've got him cornered," Sherlock went on, "he might make his move on you. I think he's getting worried as all day we've been followed by a lackey."

"Bloody hell," Mary swore. "And we just—"

"I think this person is new to the system, to replace one I took out. He doesn't know me other than your annoying American tagalong that just had his hair done. And since it took hours, clearly Sherman is a touch gay.

"Sit on the floor in the kitchen. The window access in your bedroom is easy, as is the living room. If you're in the kitchen, you'll be well protected—even if he breaks into the flat."

Mary felt a shiver of fear shoot through her.

"But, it is highly unlikely Moron will do a thing to you. He only knows your connection to John. He doesn't know you've got one to his real target. And John will not be around tonight and Sherlock Holmes won't care about someone John hasn't even spoken to, just followed around for unknown reasons."

Sherlock straightened up as they neared the flat and put on a cheery smile.

"Well, thanks for that, Mare," Sherlock said loudly. "I'm going to head back into London to meet up with a friend of mine from college. You gonna be all right for dinner?"

"Yes, Sherwood," Mary said, adding an eye roll. "When do you think you'll be back or you going to stay with the…friend?"

Sherlock gave her a smile that told her he was planning on staying out all night. Mary rolled her eyes, waved him off and went into the building. Upon entering the flat, she made sure to act normally till the sunset and she drew the curtains. Then, she sat on the floor of her kitchen, knees drawn to her chest and waited.

It wasn't until almost two in the morning her mobile (the one Sherlock had given her to email the law firm those many moons ago over the posters for Kelia Kensington) chirped with a text message.

_All clear —SH_

"Well, that was anticlimactic. And why did he sign it?" Mary wondered, standing and stretching her neck a little. "Of does that mean he wants me to be quiet?"

She headed into her room, feeling her way in the dark and trying to be quiet just in case she as being stupider than usual. She sunk into the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"So ends my association with the Yard and Sherlock Holmes. Started with a splat and ended with a ping."

Mary cringed at her dark sense of humor. Rolling back onto her stomach she attempted not to see it as the end, but a new beginning.


	11. Homecoming

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

_17 March 2013 - Recently went back over this and edited all previously posted chapters. While it's not massively important to re-read the entire, I tweaked a few things in the last chapter. Some things were sitting well with me (ie, the Lestrade/Sherlock interaction). Instead of kissing, Sherlock hugs Lestrade and finds this a little unsettling. (He doesn't normally hug people, except Mrs Hudson). I'm going somewhere with that relationship, only I think I need more upon reflection. I've also fixed timeline problems throughout the story and consistency issues. _

* * *

_Homecoming..._

Gunshots on Baker Street were not commonplace. When several rang out in the dead of the night, John's eyes flew open and shot out of bed like a bat out of hell. Images of desert landscapes and bleeding soldiers mixed in with serial killers and red eyed hounds. His breath came out in a staccato rhythm till the noise sounded again and followed by a loud shout and squealing tires.

It took him a moment to sort out where he was before he became aware of the red and blue lights filtering through the curtains.

Upon remembering he was at Baker Street and he was sure he'd seen Sherlock Holmes on Saturday afternoon, he was sure he knew who was causing the mayhem that had caused John to burst out of bed in a fit of adrenaline, fear and a light smattering of hope.

"Mrs Hudson!" John shouted, flying down the stairs two at a time.

"Did you hear that?" Mrs Hudson inquired, holding her dressing gown tightly to her chest and looking at John as he came flying down the stairs to meet her on the landing. "At this time of night?"

"It sounded like it was from across the street," John went on, striding into the living room. The room was dancing with red and blue lights. John carefully made his way over to the window and peeked out through the flimsy curtains. Police cars and officers were littering the street, mostly hiding behind their cars. More shots rang out from the house across the street.

"Doctor Watson?" Mrs Hudson asked, padding into the room behind John. "Is it that same flat that blew up from the gas leak? It's been empty for so long. Have the criminals invaded it?"

"I think it— "

John stopped talking as he saw a familiar man go flying into the building at top speed, ignoring all the shouting behind him coming from a female who was rather loud. John hazarded a guess that it was Donovan, as she would be the only officer to shout at her commanding officer using colorful language. She was being held back by another officer, though she was putting up a very good fight to free herself to go after Greg.

John felt his heart speed up. He took in the scene again as a window on the second floor of the house across the street shattered, glass raining down into the street below.

"I'll be back," John said, hurrying out of the living room. He grabbed his jacket and eased it on before he pried the entry door open heading for the main door. Reaching for the front door, he sucked in a deep breath.

Greg had run into a building without waiting for back up.

Donovan was angry.

There were a whole lot of cops outside on the street, it was the middle of the night, and there were gun shots, shouting and a broken window.

It could really only mean one thing with what John had seen on Saturday.

John threw the door open.

Chaos was reining and bathed in red and blue dancing light. The other officers were no longer hiding behind their cars, but standing around looking baffled. It was clear whatever had been planned had failed. Miserably.

John hurried to make his way through the sea of lost police. Over it all, one voice was heard.

"What were you thinking!?" Donovan was shouting at the top of her lungs near the front door of the building across the street. It was open and she was standing in it, vibrating with anger, having freed herself from the restraint of the officer standing behind her, who was looking as if he was seeing a ghost. "AND WHAT THE—"

Words failed Donovan suddenly. She stumbled out of the doorway. John pushed his way around a few other officers. As he was making his way forward, the people all around him began whispering and staring at the building with looks of awe, shock and confusion.

"Is that…?"

"I don't know."

"I thought he was dead?"

"Didn't he jump off a roof?"

John felt his heart stutter. He darted around another group of confused police officers. As he got around the last group, he finally was able to make out the scene in front of the building across the street from 221B Baker Street. Upon seeing who was in the doorway, John stop dead in his tracks.

For a moment time stopped.

Greg was standing in the doorway to the flat holding up Sherlock Holmes.

And then it began again as Sherlock insisted, "I'm fine!"

Sherlock attempted to to push Greg away, but failing due to the nature of his injuries. Greg tightened his grip on the other man and said, "You are the farthest from fine I've seen yet."

Donovan was staring at the pair, her mouth opening and shutting but no longer issuing any noise.

"I am fine," Sherlock repeated. "I just need— "

"Bloody hospital," Greg snapped. "What did you do? Why did you do that? Why didn't you wait!? Five seconds! That was all you needed to wait for us to be in place! That's why you—"

"He was going to escape!" the other man whined.

"HE ALMOST SHOT YOU!"

"HE MISSED!"

"BUT HE TRIED TO KILL YOU!"

"He would have killed JOHN! And then MARY and MRS HUDSON! AND YOU!"

Lestrade fell quiet and stared at the man in his arms. Somehow during their confrontation, they had gone from man holding other man up so he could walk to men clinging to one another.

How had that happened?

"Why would he kill them?" Donovan asked, balling her fists and finding her voice. "What did you do? What is going on? Tell me?! How is he alive? Why is he here? How are you alive? Why are you holding him like that? What the hell is going on? Where is Mary? And why would the guy who killed Adair be after her? I knew she was trouble! Isn't that why we're here? To apprehend Adair's murder? Did he murder Adair?"

"Mary is at home and has nothing to do with Adair. And no, I did not murder Adair," Sherlock snapped, looking at Donovan in disgust. He looked back at Lestrade and seemed to notice where his body was in relation to Greg. A confused expression painted his not so angular features. "I need…"

"A doctor."

"No."

"Bloody hell, Sherlock," Greg groaned, as Sherlock's knees buckled and his full weight landed in Greg's arms. "You need a bloody doctor. You're going to hospital."

"No, I'm fine."

"He hit you in the head with the butt of his rifle, stabbed you with a knife and who knows what else before I arrived! I saw him shoot at you! At least twice! Then he tried to throw you out the bloody window!"

"And you got him," Sherlock muttered. "I kept him occupied till you arrived."

"That was not the plan you clued me into this morning," Greg muttered.

"WHAT PLAN?" Donovan roared. "How'd he talk to you this morning? You were with Mary and that— bloody American who wanted to see Scotland Yard!"

Greg heaved Sherlock forward till he lowered him to the ground unable to move the man any further. John shook his head, pushed aside an officer who was blocking John from view and approached the pair.

"Does someone need a doctor? Hey, Greg. Sergeant Donovan," John said, attempting to act as if he'd just got there.

Greg and Sherlock tensed, while Donovan whirled around so fast her head might have snapped off if not for her neck connecting it to the rest of her body. They all stared at him as if he was a ticking bomb set to explode at any given moment. John looked at Sherlock and met those light colored eyes he'd last really looked into while they blankly stared at the sky above unseeing and dead.

Those same eyes were filled with pain, agony and fear. And something else John was unable to place. It seemed as if Sherlock was unsure and a little scared.

So, John pretended to be surprised to see the man he'd lived with for almost two years. Technically, he shouldn't have known Sherlock was alive, as he wasn't meant to see him at the park.

"Sherlock?"

"I think the last time you saw me, I was called Sherman," Sherlock said, shifting himself on the stoop a little, his face scrunching up in pain.

"Sherman?" Donovan shirked as Sherlock said, "Yes, that was I in the park yesterday. Was that yesterday?"

He turned to Greg while Donovan made choking noises behind John somewhere. The silver haired man shrugged, clearly having no idea what Sherlock was talking about.

"I don't know," Greg admitted, looking bewildered. "Last time I saw you…you had horrible blond hair plastered to your head from a bad case of hat-head."

Donovan stopped choking and began to sputter.

"Sherman, yeah," John filled in. He allowed his expression to shift to show Sherlock he had figured it out and was okay.

Sherlock did not seem to understand as he was still looking somewhat unsure each time he met John's eyes.

"He said his name was Sherman Sherwood!" Donovan screeched, finding her voice again. "That was you?!"

What a horrible name…

John wondered who had picked it out. Likely Mary, as she'd been the one to make the mistake in the park on Saturday.

"What is going on? Was everyone in on this?" Donovan demanded, eyes flashing as she looked at Sherlock again.

"No, Sally," Sherlock said, craning his neck around to look at her. He winced slightly, but kept eye contact. "Only three people knew I was alive till, well, yesterday. And I'm sure the entire world will know shortly thanks to Twitter."

Sherlock spat the word _Twitter_ out as if it was something disgusting.

John knelt down in front of Sherlock and studied at his former flatmate.

Sherlock peered back looking a combination of strong-willed stubborn and sheepish.

John had arrived back at the flat Saturday afternoon in a state of shock. He rocked back and forth from being angry, to happy, to mad, then ecstatic, and a few times fearful he was simply loosing his mind.

His first instinct was to be mad. He wanted to be angry at the man who'd made John watch while he jumped off a building.

But, Sherlock was alive!

Alive, breathing, and clearly plotting something important.

John's anger at the man fled and took a holiday faster than he could get his head to properly change gears. His grief shortly joined it and took flight for Guam. In its place all that was left was relief and an anxious feeling that caused John to do bounce his foot a little too much.

While a tiny part of John still clung to the belief he was going insane and imagining things, as Sunday progressed, he was doing less of a stellar job at convincing himself he'd not seen what he had seen in the park. He knew he had seen Sherlock because he was filled with relief. Any of the other false sightings he'd suffered over the past year had never filed him with relief.

Sherlock was alive. He'd stopped being dead.

John had only ever asked Sherlock one thing: to not be dead.

In seeing Sherlock in the park, one thing was clear: Sherlock was not dead.

John had gotten his request granted. When he realized that, any left over anger seeped to the ground and relief, joy and excitment filled John's heart to the brim.

He wasn't sure what the whole story happened to be, or what Mary Morstan's role in the entire thing was, but he'd allow Sherlock to explain it to him before recalling his anger from Guam. And now, faced with an injured Sherlock Holmes who had clearly done something to save John (as well as Mary, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade), John knew he'd made the right choice.

"Now, where did you get stabbed?" John asked, raising his hands up to do an examination of his friend. His visual exam told him that Sherlock had gotten hit in the face several times and might need stitches, likely had a few cracked or bruised ribs and maybe had a concussion. And who knew what else from the attempt to throw him from the window.

One thing he did notice was the fact Sherlock weight a lot more than he had when John had last seen the man. In the back of his mind, John wondered what Mary's secret (or who ever had kept track of the gangly man) was at getting Sherlock to eat regularly.

"I was not stabbed," Sherlock snapped.

"Leg," Greg said firmly. "Not bleeding too much, but he was limping."

"Was not."

"Were too," Greg needled, giving Sherlock a look.

John frowned, feeling he was missing something. Shaking his head and putting his mind to the matter at hand, he lifted Sherlock's tattered jeans (Sherlock was wearing jeans?) up to reveal a shallow cut that had crusted over.

"See, not stabbed," Sherlock proclaimed.

John shook his head. "Won't know more till I clean this up. Might need stitches."

"Will not."

John shook his head. "Were you this much trouble to those who were helping you this past year?"

Sherlock said nothing, just stared at John. Greg cleared his throat and pointed at Sherlock's face.

"What about his face?"

There was blood trickling down from a deep cut on Sherlock's face and a bruise was already blooming on from where he'd gotten hit with the butt of the rifle Greg had mentioned earlier. John raised his hand up and lightly touched Sherlock's cheekbone that didn't have a gash. The younger man jerk away, then gasp in pain and grab his middle.

"Hmm. Likely fractured the cheekbone and your ribs need seeing to. Can't do that here. Let's get you up and to hospital."

"No! I can't! I have to—"

"What, Sherlock?" Greg challenged, carefully heaving the younger man up from the ground. Sherlock hissed in pain till John steadied him on the other side. "What is so pressing you must do it now instead of tending to your own life?"

"I told Mary I'd contact her once this was over," Sherlock muttered. "She was being followed and I thought maybe Moron might…"

John had no idea what Sherlock was talking about, but he felt his heart constrict and he held his breath as he glanced at Greg who seemingly understood what Sherlock was trying to say.

"Well, where's your phone?" Greg asked.

"Coat. Second floor, near broken window."

Greg rolled his eyes and looked at John. "Get him in the ambulance and to hospital. I'll meet you two there. I'll get your bloody coat."

"It's not mine. It's Sherman's," Sherlock said, lip curling.

Greg chuckled. He untangled himself from Sherlock and stalked back towards the house, shouting orders to the police milling around the entrance. John sagged a bit as Sherlock's full weight settled against him.

"Gained some weight while you were gone, huh?" John joked awkwardly, struggling to move an unmovable man.

"I had to," Sherlock said. "The thinner I got, the more often I seemed to be noticed. I forced myself to eat more often."

"Really?" John asked, surprised it was Sherlock making sure he ate, rather than someone else forcing him. "It didn't slow you down?"

"Of course it did, but I was so close to being done," Sherlock snapped. "I do not need to go to hospital. I'm fine."

"Which is why you're standing on your own and walking, yeah?"

Sherlock glowered. "This was not how I imagined this going."

"What? Telling me you were alive?"

"Yes. For one, I was standing and not wearing this…horrible….tacky…."

Sherlock trailed off staring down at his torn, dirty and bloody clothing. It was the same outfit he'd had on the day John seen him by the Palace. As John took in his friend, he realized the only change since John had seen the man at the park was his hair, which had gone back to how it'd been the last time John had seen the man when he'd been Sherlock Holmes.

"Not very you, now is it?"

"No."

"Come along, Sherlock. You need better care than I can give you on the street," John said, trying to urge Sherlock to move forward.

"Fine. But promise you'll hear me out before you punch me," Sherlock grumbled as he attempted to walk on his own.

"I don't plan to punch you," John admitted, tightening his grip on the younger man. Sherlock slumped down again. "I know you must have had your reasons."

"I broke you."

"And I fixed me," John lied. John wasn't sure he'd been totally fixed till he accepted the fact Sherlock was alive.

"No. No, Mary fixed you," Sherlock said quietly as he finally managed to shuffle himself to a half standing position that allowed him and John to move forward. "The mystery of Kelia Kensington brought you back to London and thinking Mary was her caused you to stay. You began living again only after that. You lost the slight limp and tremor in your hand again once you had returned to London."

John had no words. They all left in a whoosh, leaving him blank and absent.

"I was jealous till I realized something about Mary," Sherlock went on as they slowly made their way towards the ambulance that appeared behind the line of police cars. John was half amazed they weren't being stopped by the officers who were all milling around, but they moved through the sea of police easily and unnoticed. "She was lonely— very lonely. She had been isolated for years and become rather contramundum. Even when she was Kensington and married and on top of the world, she was alone. She was very alone and did not know it."

"Like you?"

Sherlock looked over at him, his face bathed dancing blue and red lights. John stared at his friend, feeling a jolt of joy at seeing the man alive.

"Like you, John. You said it yourself. You were so very alone till you met me," Sherlock said quietly. "Mary was solitary till the day she decided to walk passed St. Bart's and I chose to jump from the roof. Those two choices brought the pair of us together, the common denominator: you."

John blinked.

"You were right in your deduction she is Kelia," Sherlock said quietly. "But, let her tell you. It's her story, not…mine."

Sherlock's eyes went unfocused for a moment and he swayed. He almost fell out of John's grip before a paramedic appeared out of thin air and helped stabilize Sherlock and got him into the back of the ambulance.

* * *

Sherlock ended up with a hairline fractured cheekbone and several cracked ribs. He had only bruises along his back from his collision with the window— his coat and tacky clothing having prevented any worse damage.

"My boot really broke the window, not me," Sherlock had assured John. "After he slammed me into it, which made the bruises, he tried to throw me out it again, but I kicked back, thus breaking the window."

The wound on Sherlock's leg (which wasn't from the knife, but the window) didn't need stitches, but it would likely leave an ugly scar. The cut on his face needed stitches (it was from the knife). The doctor assured Sherlock it would not scar like the wound on his leg, though.

"But, it'd match all the others ones," Sherlock darkly muttered as he sat on the bed in the ER, scowling darkly and looking ridiculous in hospital gown.

"What others?" John inquired. "Like the one on your arm?"

Sherlock unfolded his arms and gazed down at his forearm, which was marred with a rather ugly looking scar.

"Yes, along with the others."

"How did you get that one? The one on your arm."

Sherlock remained quiet for a long moment before speaking.

"My first run in with Moron— I mean, Moran. Sebastian Moran, the sniper Brook— Moriarty— trusted above all others. I did connect the name with the person till he gave me this one, though," Sherlock said, motioning to the scar on his leg. "I knew Moran was part of the network, but until I was faced with him tonight, I had not realized it was Moran who'd given me this one. A matching set, I guess you could say."

Sherlock held the scar on his arm near the cleaned up and taped together cut on his leg.

The curtain opened behind John and another person entered the room.

"Here. I got you your own clothes…though, I don't know if they'll fit," Greg said, holding out a pile of folded clothing.

Sherlock made a noise through his noise and looked between the other two men before saying, "Well?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry. We'll just be out here."

John quickly exited the room, followed by Greg.

"So, how is he?" Greg asked.

"He's fine. He'll live. He'll be sore…cracked ribs, fractured cheekbone. His face should be fine. They gave him something to make the swelling go down. He's got stitches, liquid ones, on his face, but the one on his leg didn't need any."

Greg nodded.

"He tell you his tale yet?"

John shook his head. "Not all of it. Just how he got the scar on his arm."

Greg nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. The two men stood in silence till Sherlock tossed the curtain open and stepped out. He demanded to be taken back to Baker Street.

"It is time John knows the entire story," Sherlock stated. "Best tell him someplace more comfortable than this."

Sherlock strode passed the two men, only swaying a little. Greg hurried to Sherlock's side, but did not touch the gangly man. The pair exited the hospital with John trailing behind.

Questions swirled around John's mind as he followed, but he kept his mouth shut.

It remained shut until Sherlock had spilled the entire story from start to end. Then his mouth gaped open in shock. No words came out and no matter how much John wanted to say something— anything— no sound issued.

"And so ends my tale," Sherlock finished, looking at John as if he had sprouted another head.

John managed to close his mouth. He took a moment to collect himself and organize what Sherlock had just told him.

"So, you faked your death to keep us safe. Lestrade, me and Mrs Hudson," John recapped. Sherlock gave a curt nod. "You hunted down the players and shakers of Moriarty's network— I mean, Brook's network— after he offed himself on the roof, which your brother covered up, and made sure these network cogs were caught and in jail?"

Another curt nod.

"Did you kill any of them?"

"Not on purpose," Sherlock admitted. "I tried to leave it up to the authorities. Sometimes, though, accidents happened."

The look on Sherlock's face was enough for John to drop the topic. Why Sally Donovan thought Sherlock would one day turn to killing to amuse himself was a mystery to John.

"And tonight was the last one? This Sebastian Moran was the last piece of the network?"

Curt nod. "Well, the last part that kept it rolling. Without it's leader, the remaining aspects will descend into chaos and will be easily caught by local authorities without my aid."

John studied Sherlock for a long moment before asking, "Will you tell me more later or is this the only time we're going to talk about this?"

"I don't like to discuss what I did, but if you wish to ask questions when you've had time to think, that will be fine. Just…if you do not mind… I'm tired of talking about it. It feels like all I've spoken about for the last forty-eight hours, hell the year, is this…thing," Sherlock scoffed. "What time is it?"

"Almost six in the morning," John said, covering a yawn that snuck up on him.

"Good," Sherlock said, pushing himself to his feet. "Mary will be awake and you can catch a few hour so sleep."

"You are seriously going to bring her here?"

Something fluttered around within John any time he put any thought into the fact that Kelia/Mary and Sherlock had been around one another for the past seven months or more. Then something completely different surged in John at the thought of Kelia/Mary coming to Baker Street.

Sherlock gave him a look. "She has a case, John. One I've been ignoring in favor of bringing down Brook's network."

"What case?"

Sherlock moved the door, looking behind it. He frowned and then headed into the kitchen.

"Sherlock, what are you looking for?"

"My coat."

John froze and stared as the taller man headed into the back of the flat. John heard the door fly open and Sherlock grunt. A few seconds later, Sherlock appeared in the living room.

"I take it Mycroft cleaned out my room?"

John nodded. "I don't remember when."

"Before I let him know I was alive, likely."

John tried his best not to frown at that, as John had blamed Mycroft for Sherlock's downfall, in the press and literally. After the funeral, John had refused to speak to the elder Holmes.

"When did you let him know?" John quietly asked.

"Oh, after I was well enough to walk and the funeral was over," Sherlock replied. "One I figured out how vast and complicated the network was, I knew I'd kneed Mycroft's…resources."

Sherlock shook his head and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his overly snug trousers.

"Where did Lestrade find these?"

Sherlock indicated to the much too tight clothing he was currently sporting. He did not seem to notice his clothes were more form fitting than they'd been before he'd started eating regularly.

"No clue. I was with you," John pointed out. "I have one more question for the time being."

"Yes?"

"Why did you let Mary of all people know you were alive? Molly all ready knew— having helped you fake your death— so why not go to Molly for…a place to crash?"

Sherlock pressed his lips together. "While I value Molly's skills as a pathologist, she cannot deduce. Mycroft informed me of her skills after I let him know I was alive, suggesting if she did get herself introduced into your life, she might be of use. He was against tell her I was alive after she deduced it, but I realized I could…well, for lack of a better term, use her."

"She deduces? Like you?"

"Not like me. She is slower and stares a lot," Sherlock admitted, rocking on his heels. "You will see, don't worry. And I will let her tell you the tale of how she figured out I was alive."

"Does Molly know you're back?"

"No. I haven't contacted Molly since she let me out of the morgue. That was the plan. I knew if there was any doubt I was dead, Moran would not overlook Molly as Brook did. Moran had people watching everyone, including Anderson."

Sherlock shuttered. John gaped.

"I will let Molly know in due time. Maybe before I go wake Mary. There is a few things I must do before I take on her case," Sherlock said, drifting further into the living room. "Get some sleep. I'll find my things and return— oh."

Sherlock suddenly appeared rather awkward.

"Can I…well, I mean…I don't know…that was forward…I don't live here."

John blinked at Sherlock. "You don't live here?"

"No. I'm sure Mycroft removed me from the lease as soon as I died," Sherlock noted, looking around the living room. His eyes took on a sharp quality as he scanned the room. "My skull is missing again. My violin is gone. My equipment is gone from the kitchen. My clothing is absent. But, many of my other things remain."

"Yes. Your brother took the skull and violin with your clothing. Mrs Hudson packed up your chemistry stuff. It's in a box downstairs in 221C. You didn't leave a will— or Mycroft couldn't find it. He said something about you more than likely wishing to leave things to me, but he was dead set on getting certain things— said the skull was his and the violin…well, I don't know what to do with a violin anyways. I'd've kept the skull, but he said something and I wasn't exactly listening…"

"It's fine. I know where my things have gone. I'll get them before waking Mary," Sherlock said. "After I speak to Molly."

"Waking Mary?"

Suddenly, a small smirk lit Sherlock's face up like a beacon.

"She does detest when I wake her early on the weekend," Sherlock gloated.

"It's Monday."

"It is?" Sherlock frowned. "Oh. No. No. Be back John! Get some sleep!"

Sherlock spun around and sprinted out of the flat (somehow), the door banging behind him. John stood up and went to the window. He watched Sherlock hurry down the street in the direction of the Tube station. John wasn't sure how Sherlock was able to move so fluidly and easily with cracked ribs and a rather bruised body.

They must have given him stronger pain medication than John thought. He best look into that.

Wait…

"Is he going to take the Tube?" John asked the empty room.

The room failed to give him any sort of answer.

Blinking his eyes slowly a few times, he decided it was high time to get a few winks before the coming day really arrived. It promised to be a busy one, if Sherlock did drag Mary to Baker Street to start on her case. Having no idea what sort of case Kelia/Mary might have, but assuming it had to do with those posters, John could only imagine what sort of trouble was ahead for him and Sherlock.

A soft smile found its way onto John's face and he turned away from the window.

After verifying the doctor had only given Sherlock prescription strength paracetamol, John trudged up the stairs to his bedroom. Getting into bed, he settled in and thought over the things Sherlock had told John.

Sherlock was alive and dashing around London once again.

No matter what, that single thought made John happy.


	12. We're All A Little Mad

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_We're All A Little Mad…_

Sophie had discovered spray paint.

Mary happened to hate spray paint. It was something she'd disliked strongly since she was a child and her mother had used a can of yellow spray to color her hair so it would be bright yellow. Mary had no clue what the purpose of this endeavor had been as she was three, but cans of spray paint freaked her out.

Least to say, she was less than pleased when Sophie had magically produced a can, cornered her and proceeded to spray it straight in Mary's face.

Sophie, of course, thought the fact she'd sprayed a boat load of paint in Mary's face was the funniest thing in the world. The devil child was currently rolling around somewhere to Mary's right laughing her butt off.

Mary was not a nanny. She was a French and sometimes maths tutor. But, this summer she had somehow turned into a nanny.

She was not amused.

Mary was not meant to be in a nanny in any sense of the concept. A proper nanny wouldn't currently have spray paint all over her face and certainly wouldn't be breathing through her mouth due to the spray paint up her nose. She would also lack whatever Arnold had just smashed into her hair before laughing like an vile little goblin and vanishing into the depths of the house. Whatever was in her hair was cold and slimy.

She did not want to know.

"Well, this is an interesting development," a familiar, deep voice said from somewhere above Mary's head.

Mary attempted to quirk an eyebrow, but was sure it did not move in the way she imagined. Her face was somewhat frozen due to the dried paint.

Sophie stop giggling.

She in fact fell completely silent.

Mary felt Sherlock put a warm hand on her shoulder, then another under her elbow and help her to her feet. She did not miss the quick intact of breath from Sherlock, nor she miss how he wasn't moving as fluidly as he usually did. Quick deduction: Sherlock had hurt himself during his take down of the Moron.

Oh, how she wished to hear the full tale. She knew he wouldn't tell her. He'd make her figure it out as for some odd reason he liked to do that with her and not show off as he was known to do for other people.

Genius needed an audience, yet the Genius liked to watch Mary figure it out.

Bastard.

"I'm afraid it did not occur to me you would be incapacitated by blue spray paint."

Mary made a noise in her throat, not trusting herself to speak while children were present. Sherlock began to steer her in the direction of the guest loo.

"Not sure the best way to get spray paint off skin," Sherlock mused. "Never tried to spray it on my face. It does not, in fact, wash off wallpaper."

Mary made another noise as Sherlock turned her and pushed her forward. She felt the flooring change and assumed she'd made it to the loo. A quick grope around and she found the sink.

"What are you doing?" Sophie demanded in her rudest tone. "She is not allowed to use this toilet. She's a servant!"

"Is that so?"

"Mummy pays her," Sophie announced.

"I pay her much more, so she belongs to me."

Mary made a noise of protest, which was smothered out by a wet flannel suddenly plastered on her face.

"Mummy pays her better," Sophie proclaimed.

Tragically, this was true as Sherlock paid Mary nothing. He took up space in her flat, drank her tea and occasionally ate her food. He cost her money.

"Then you ought to treat her better."

The flannel came off her face and Mary felt something cool trickle down her face and around her eyes.

"I can treat her how I want. Mummy said so."

"I doubt she said that," Sherlock informed the child.

Mary felt Sherlock brush his thumbs under her eyes and suddenly her eyelashes were unstuck. She blinked several times wondering what on earth he'd done to free them. She was afraid to even look in the mirror. Her nose was still somewhat clogged with paint and all she could smell was spray paint and another chemical she couldn't place.

"Ah, brilliant. Glad I had this on me."

Mary watched Sherlock slip something in a clear vial into the pocket of a wool great coat that she'd only seen in photos before. She glanced up and down Sherlock's person to find him dressed as Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.

A bit over kill for the muggy summer day London was having…

Sherlock looked up and studied her carefully, a small frown appearing between his eyes. Mary took a second look at him, taking in the bruised cheek and plaster on his face. She noted that while he was standing tall, he was leaning somewhat on the vanity.

"I believe you are through with this job," Sherlock announced, pulling out a mobile and sending off a text. He looked back at her and waited.

"Who told you that?" Mary asked, peeling layers of blue paint from her face and dropping them in the sink despite Sophie's protests. Wetting the paint with whatever Sherlock had used caused it to peel right off her face. Maybe she ought to stick it up her nose?

"This is below you, Mary," Sherlock said, crossing his arms and wincing. He uncrossed his arms and readjusted his stance.

Ribs. He'd bruised or cracked his ribs.

How was he even standing?

"Sherlock, should you be out and about?" Mary attempted to inquire, knowing he'd not give her a proper answer.

He flapped his hand at her. "I'm fine. Why are you here?"

"I work here, Sherlock," she said in a quiet tone. "Some of us need to work for a living. And you are not fine. People only say they're fine when they're not."

Sherlock leaned in close to her, his eyes ablaze with something Mary could not place. He looked excited, like he'd just landed a spectacular case.

If that was the case, why was he standing in the Forrester's guest toilet watching Mary peel blue spray paint off her face while her hair was plastered to her head with slimy cold goop?

"Oh, I am fine. You are me," Sherlock informed her.

Mary blinked at him. Did he have a fever?

"Well, as close as an idiot can be me."

He straightened up, almost hiding the wince, and turned to deal with Sophie, who was having a royal hissy fit behind them. It occurred to Mary she had no idea where Sophie's younger brother Arnold had gotten to after sliming her.

She really ought not be left to care for children.

Well, at least these two children. The kids she'd tutored in New Zealand had been no problem. Though, she was never their nanny, just a maths tutor.

"Where is your nanny?" Sherlock inquired.

"I do not have a nanny," Sophie spat. "I look after myself and Arnold."

"If that is the case, where is Arnold?"

Sophie suddenly realized Arnold was in fact missing in action and started screaming bloody murder. Mary sighed, wondering if she'd ever get the paint out of her nose. Sherlock always said breathing was boring, maybe this was her chance to see if he was really right?

"Screaming will not locate your brother," Sherlock informed the girl.

Who, of course, continued to scream bloody murder.

Sherlock ignored her, strode passed her and returned a moment later holding out a slim covered child who wore a shit-eating grin. He set the child down in front of his sister.

"Why cry sissy?"

"Arnold!"

And Arnold kicked his sister, giggled and ran away. He was followed by his irate sister, who was now howling.

"Charming," Sherlock scoffed. "Where is their mother?"

"No idea. She leaves and never tells me," Mary said, turning to see the damage in the mirror.

She didn't make it before Sherlock grabbed her and turned her to face him again.

"Mary Blair Morstan, you are sitting on a very interesting case," Sherlock proclaimed. "As well as a small fortune. Why do you need this job? You are currently covered in spray paint and a very bad batch of some sort of polymer."

Sherlock scooped some out of her hair and pressed it between his fingers. It was glowing green in color— just like the stuff Arnold had been covered in. Brilliant.

"You mean he put actual slime in my hair?"

"I could take a sample and figure it out," Sherlock offered, still looking at the goop between his long fingers. "I believe he put too much water into his mixture."

Mary groaned, running her fingers through her short hair. They came out coated in radioactive green slime. She added that to the mess in the sink.

"I pose the question again: Why do you need this job?"

"Why? Because I have to do something," Mary insisted. "I need to do something and not just waste away in my flat!"

"Oh!" Sherlock breathed, his eyes going wide. "Here."

Reaching into the coat pocket again, he produced a black velvet box and strode off in the direction of the screams and cackling.

"I'm not going to marry you!" Mary called after Sherlock before opening the box.

She was greeted by some of the largest fresh water pearls she'd ever laid eyes on. Turning in the direction Sherlock had gone, she walked blindly till she reached the back sunroom where the children had retired to scream and shout at one another. In the time it took Mary to walk from the loo to the sunroom, Sherlock had gotten the two children to stop creating offensive noise. Mary entered the room and looked at Sherlock.

"Where did you get these?"

"You have failed to check the post box Mycroft set up for you," Sherlock replied, standing in the middle of the room with his hands behind his back. "I checked it this morning before coming to get you. They never got back to you via email, but they've been posting those to you."

"Why on earth would you mail pearls?" she asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "I have no idea. But, it is of interest and a mystery. First they send you an awful lot of money via a check. Then they send you some of the largest pearls I've ever seen. Or really good fakes."

Sherlock scowled.

"I don't care what they are. I don't want them!"

"Why?" Sophie demanded. "They are pearls!"

"Not dye-a-muns," Arnold snickered. "Mummy likes dye-a-muns."

"Of course she does," Mary muttered. "Sherlock, I don't understand."

"I don't either!" he shouted as if it was the greatest thing to ever happen to him. "Why send pearls? And there are six of them! Why? In today's world, why not just send the money! Wire the money! Buy you some stock shares! Why send six pearls of all things through the British post? I don't know!"

He seemed to take some great pride in shouting he didn't know.

"I propose we retire to Baker Street and discuss this with John. I can also run further analysis on those pearl you do not want," Sherlock announced, snatching the box from Mary. He checked his watch and nodded. "I believe John will be awake and properly attired for guests."

"What?" Mary shouted. "What? What? What?"

"Four good questions. Well, not really," Sherlock admitted, waving his hand at her and scrunching his nose up.

"You are clearly on some sort of pain medication making you more mental than usual," Mary muttered.

"I've only taken paracetamol."

"Mummy takes that when Daddy's home," Arnold offered from his seat on the other side of the room. His hands were stained yellow and green. He had bits of the slime all over in his hair and his pockets were oozing out on to the chair he was seated on.

Brilliant.

"I…no, Sherlock. No. You….Moron is caught, it's over."

"That is over."

"Exactly."

Sherlock looked confused.

"I…I need…" Mary floundered, then looked away from Sherlock's bemused face. "Arnold, you're leaking slime."

"I know!" the kid happily agreed.

"MARY!"

Mary tensed up as Mrs Forrester called her name through the house.

"Are you here?"

"In here, Mummy!" Sophie shouted. "She used the guest loo!"

Mary decided it was the perfect moment for a face-palm.

"YOU GOT ME FIRED!" Mary screamed once they were on the street.

She thumped Sherlock on the arm with her fist. She didn't care if he was hurt there, he'd gotten her FIRED.

"You got me bloody fired!"

"You should thank me! Anyone who fires you for using the wrong toilet to wash spray paint off your face put there by her daughter isn't someone you wish to be working for. Just because her husband is cheating on her doesn't mean she ought to take it out on you," Sherlock added, dodging Mary's fist again as she aimed another thump.

Of course, Sherlock had informed Mrs Forrester of the affair, her terrible parenting skills and a couple of other things Mrs Forrester likely didn't need to be told.

"You are insufferable!"

"You don't need that job! If you want to babysit, we can have Mycroft pay you to babysit me!"

"He should!" Mary shouted.

She stalked off down the street away from the mad man wearing a wool coat on a summer day. Storming off was a stupid thing to do, as he'd catch up with her, but she did it anyway.

"You're going to the wrong way," Sherlock called.

"I will go what way I want! I have blue paint up my nose still, I'm covered in green slime and it's bloody hot out here and why are you wearing a scarf and wool coat?"

"I always wear them," Sherlock stated. He grabbed her arm, bringing her to a stop. "Do you need to clean up before going to Baker Street?"

Mary made an annoyed noise and attempted to free herself.

"I take that as a yes," Sherlock replied. "I guess it would be wise to wash your hair and change your clothing. While Lestrade has seen you in various stained outfits and with various goops in your hair, I believe due to the fact you're going to see John, you'd like to look your best."

Mary screeched in his face.

Sherlock let her go and she stormed off down the street.

* * *

Mary should have known it would not be that easy to get rid of Sherlock Holmes. She arrived at her flat, went straight into the loo and drowned herself in the shower. While she did not _need_ the job, it did get her out of the flat and gave her somewhere she had to be on an almost daily basis.

She had nothing now.

No more calls to go to the Yard. No more tutoring. No more teas with Mrs Hudson.

It was all over.

Curse Sherlock Holmes.

Mary got out of the shower and threw her dressing gown on. Muttering darkly under her breath she headed into her bedroom and flung herself onto the bed. She stewed until she drifted off to sleep. She woke a few hours later and groaned. It was dark in her room. Raising her hands up, she ran them through her hair to find it was sticking up in at all angles. She went into the loo and fought with it for a moment till it looked somewhat normal then headed to put some clothes on.

Though, she could just keep wearing her dressing gown. It wasn't like she was going anywhere.

"Wear this."

Mary screamed.

"Why do you insist on screaming at me?"

"Because you keep bloody breaking into my flat!"

"I have a key."

Mary wailed again, only this time in frustration. She grabbed the clothes from Sherlock and stormed back into the bathroom. She threw them on and attempted to fix her again. She took a few calming breaths and closed her eyes. She counted to ten at least twenty times before she felt she was ready to face the mad man again. She exited the bathroom to find Sherlock was no longer in her bedroom. Maybe she had dreamed him up?

No, he'd handed her clothing. Was what she wearing?

This was a little nicer than what she had planned on wearing, since she wasn't leaving the house.

Oh, no. He was going to make her leave. She headed out into the living room.

"I don't—"

The rest of the sentence died in her throat as standing in the center of her living room watching Sherlock explain the web that still dominated the decor was John Watson.

He was standing sideways to her, hands folded behind his back and a pleasantly interested expression on his face while Sherlock danced around the room, ducking under his various red lines, talking a million miles an hour. Mary took a few steps backwards and slammed the door of her bedroom, causing Sherlock to fall silent.

"I told you she wouldn't appreciate this," John said to Sherlock, who snorted.

The two men continued to speak to one another while Mary pressed her back to the door, unsure what to do with herself. Yes, she'd wanted to see John, speak to John to know John. But, after the day she'd had?

No.

No, tonight she wanted to wear her dressing gown, bemoan her lot in life and drown her sorrows in chocolate and tea.

Bugger.

She had no chocolate.

"I've got you chocolate, Mary," came Sherlock's voice from the other side of the door. "Between knowing you crave it at times of stress and John telling me I'd just caused you a great deal of strife, I thought it best to bring quite a bit. What?"

John said something to Sherlock.

"John stated he will make you tea," Sherlock went on, his voice trying to placate her. "He makes good tea."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't," Sherlock stated.

"Yeah, I think I do."

"Fine. But, I have chocolate and you do not. Unless you keep some in your wardrobe."

Mary cursed, but opened the door and held her hand out. Grinning like cat who'd caught a canary, Sherlock handed her a bar of Cadbury dairy milk chocolate. She ripped the wrapper off and stuffed it in her mouth, glaring at Sherlock.

"Oh. Your eyes are blue," Sherlock commented. He cocked his head to the side, blinked a few times and then smiled. "Much better."

Mary gaped at him for a moment, blinking stupidly. She'd forgotten she'd taken the contacts out upon reaching home, as between the paint and odd chemical Sherlock poured over her face, she figured it'd be best to remove the pieces of flimsy plastic from her eyes and let them breathe.

Sherlock nodded his head as if his word was final and she would never be wearing her brown contacts again and turned in a whirl of coat tails and went back into the living room. Mary followed at a slower pace. John was bustling around in her tiny kitchen getting the tea ready on a tray Mary had forgotten she owned. There were also a great deal of shopping bags on the counters. John seemed to be putting things away while he fixed the tea. He threw open a cabinet door and looked confounded.

"Sherlock, why did you buy over a hundred packages of rich tea biscuits? Did you forget she had cabinets full of chocolate digestives?"

Sherlock didn't answer, just began ripping down the red web.

Mary stood by watching Sherlock dismantle the web while munching on the chocolate. John continued to attempt to cram the packages of rich tea biscuits into the cabinets all ready full of digestives. John finished making tea and brought the tray out setting it on the coffee table. He indicated Mary ought to take a seat, so she sat.

"Hi, I'm John," he said needlessly. But he smiled, so it was okay. He also handed her a mug of tea, so she had something to do with her hands.

Mary swallowed and said, "Mary. Hello. Long time no see."

"You could say that," John mused, holding a mug between his hands.

Mary shifted a little next to him, unsure how to proceed.

"Sorry about him. I guess I ought to apologize for the last year or so," John laughed, looking a little uncomfortable suddenly. "He's…"

"Sherlock," Mary finished. She shrugged. Sherlock wasn't the issue. Sherlock Mary could deal with as she'd done so since the day she'd met him in person. John was another matter.

There was a loud crash on the other side of the living room as Sherlock managed to tear down the entire wall of evidence in one go. He flew around, grabbed up something else, and began plastering the wall once more, this time with different items.

"What are you doing?" Mary demanded, setting her mug down on the tray.

"Evidence!" Sherlock shouted manically.

Mary sighed. She picked the tea back up and downed half of it in one gulp.

"So," John began sipping his own tea, "what have you been doing the last eight or seven years since I last saw you? Well, that I remember. The actual last time I saw you I don't really clearly remember— between the bump on the head and…that idiot."

He turned his own bright blue eyes to meet hers and Mary felt herself freeze.

He _did_ know who she was.

How did she feel about this?

She had no idea.

He didn't remember the day Sherlock fell down and went boom?

Oh, bugger.

"I think you know the answer to that," she said quietly, looking into the depths of her teacup. "I, uh, gave up my day job to become a traveling vagabond, which I gave up to be a student, which I gave up to be a tutor who had all her clothes ruined by devil goblins."

"Ah," John said. "Interesting. I'm pretty sure you know my story. Heard you turned into a detective."

Mary set the mug down again and frowned. "I wouldn't say that. I was just too curious for my own good. Like usual."

"The case!" Sherlock suddenly shouted.

John and Mary startled to look at Sherlock, who had finished whatever he was doing across the room and was now demanding their attention. Once he knew he had it, he turned back to the wall.

"The emails, the flyers, the pearls, the post box…" Sherlock muttered, finger pointing out all these things.

"What the hell is that?" John asked, indicating to a murder scene.

"A murder scene, John," Sherlock scoffed, looking at John as if he was a moron.

"Clearly. What does it have to do with this?" John waved his hand at the wall.

"Oh, it's one of the partners at the law firm. Lestrade pointed it out to me this morning," Sherlock explained. "He remembered the last name being attached to the posters. It was an open and shut case, so he thought. I believe he's wrong."

"Of course," John and Mary said in unison.

Sherlock looked between them before turning back around.

"I believe tomorrow morning, we will visit the law firm and speak to a Thaddeus Sholto. Doubt they are in now."

"One of the partners?"

"Correct."

"I'm thinking eight. Is that too early, Mary?"

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at her and gave her a look that clearly stated she was an idiot.

"Why would I go?"

"This is your case, Mary! This is your life! Sholto! You should know that name!"

Mary felt like she was drowning. "Why?"

Sherlock buried his face in his hands and muttered under his breath for a moment before jamming his hands into his hair.

"Sholto! Captain Sholto was stationed in Iraq with your father!"

"Uh, okay," Mary said. "Sherlock, I never knew my father. I knew of him, but I never met him that I remember and he died when I was ten."

Sherlock stared at her blankly.

"Sholto knew your father," Sherlock stated flatly. "I've looked into it. They were aquaintances. Here. Look."

Sherlock ripped something off the wall and handed it to Mary. She stared at the photo, a pictures of her father and some other guy in the desert. She turned it over and read: Arthur Morton and Thad Sholto, 1993.

"Wait. My father died in 1991," Mary said. "Is it labeled wrong?"

"No."

"But…"

"They are not in somewhere your father ought to be in that photo either. Per military records, your father was based at was in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. Look at the mountains in the background."

She did. They looked more like really tall rocks, not exactly mountains. Having lived in California, when someone mentioned mountains she thought of the Sierra Nevadas and snow. These mountains had no snow, thus not really mountains.

"Look at the ground."

She did. It looked like…sand.

"It's the wrong color to be Iraq," John whispered next to Mary.

"Correct. Much too red," Sherlock agreed.

"What are they doing? Sight seeing in uniform?" John asked, a frown in his tone.

"Where are they?" Mary asked, looking up at Sherlock.

"Wadi Rum," Sherlock said. "It is in Jordan. I am not sure if that is important or not yet. But, what is disturbing, is the fact neither Sholto or your father had any reason to be in Jordan in 1993 or ever— especially since one of them is dead."

Mary had no idea what to say.

"You're sure he's dead?" John asked. "Maybe he's not…"

"The army records Mycroft showed me when Mary figured out I was alive stated he was dead, they'd found his body and shipped it home. In 1991," Sherlock stated. "Granted, the paper work could have been wrong, but Mycroft assured me the body was shipped home was indeed Morton. Though, his body was not shipped back to the United Kingdom till 2003."

"What? I went to his funeral in 1991…"

Sherlock turned his full attention to Mary.

"Exactly. I looked in every aspect of that photo. It is not faked. And it is from 1993. Look at the decorations Sholto is wearing. He's been awarded for having fought in the Gulf War."

"Those were approved in…"

"1992," Sherlock stated. "It was issued to officers who served in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and yet Captain Morstan doesn't have one."

"So…he's alive? Or he's dead now?" Mary asked, feeling confused.

"As of 2004, he's dead. He came home with the first causalities of the 2003 invasion of Iraq," Sherlock reminded her. "And then the paperwork…is a bit not good. John, do you have any idea what two army officers would be doing in Jordan in 1993?"

"No. Sorry. There was a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994, but I'm not sure what two army captains would be doing with that."

"Especially one who was dead," Sherlock muttered darkly. "There is something I'm missing. Something very large."

"Where did you find this photo?" Mary asked, looking at the photo carefully.

"In a file," Sherlock said aversively. "Tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock. Should give you enough time to get ready to go to the law firm. Come along, John. Best let her get some sleep."

Sherlock swept out of the flat before John had a chance to stand.

"Welcome to our life," he said, still smiling warmly. "I'll see you tomorrow. Hopefully after this is over, we'll have a chance to talk, yeah?"

Mary nodded.

He squeezed her shoulder and hurried after the clever idiot. The moment the door slammed, Mary let go of the photograph and let out a groan, throwing her face into her hands. Too much had happened within too short of a time.

Her brain short wired.


	13. Finding Your Way Back

**Disclaimer: ****_Sherlock _****was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss based on the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to ****_Sherlock_****. This is a work of fanfiction, taking elements from S2, Ep 3 of ****_Sherlock _****written by Mark Gatiss as well as ****_The Sign of Four_**** by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

_Finding Your Way Back_

Mary half expected to find Sherlock looming over her when she woke up the next morning, but he was humanly absent from the flat. She'd finished making her tea when the smartphone began to beep. Ignoring it, Mary continued on her merry way, till her mobile began to chirp with an inflow of texts that arrived without pause.

_Are you awake? -SH_

_Where are you? -SH_

_Why are you ignoring my texts? - SH_

_You should be here by now. - SH_

_If you keep refusing to use the correct phone, I will blow this one up. - SH_

Mary hurled the smartphone at the wall. Several times.

* * *

Two hours later (an hour after when Sherlock had told her to appear at Baker Street the night before) Mary knocked on the familiar door holding a plastic bag with the remnants of the smartphone. The door opened to reveal Mrs Hudson.

"Mary! What are you doing here? It's Tuesday," the old woman asked, looking mildly confused for a moment before her whole face lit up. "Did you hear? Sherlock's not dead! I saw him early this morning. He ate breakfast with me! He looked in a right state, though."

"Oh, yeah, uh…that's great," Mary stumbled. "I might have—"

"MRS HUDSON!" came Sherlock's voice from upstairs.

Mrs Hudson sighed. "Come on in, deary. What is in the bag?"

"A smartphone," Mary said, holding it up at eye level. "Tragically, they aren't very hardy. It only took maybe ten good throws at the wall to break it."

"Ah, Mrs Hudson you've found Mary!" Sherlock shouted, coming down the stairs in his greatcoat and scarf. "You are two hours late!"

"You know one another?" Mrs Hudson faintly asked as John followed Sherlock down dressed properly for the summer morning.

Mary felt once again wrong footed at the sight of John Watson. He gave her a smile and looked about to apologize for Sherlock when Sherlock barreled into Mary, knocking her backwards and into the door Mrs Hudson had just shut.

"SHERLOCK!" two people bellowed.

"Of course I know Mary," Sherlock scoffed, hauling Mary upright. "Everyone knows Mary at the end of the day."

Sherlock stared at Mary, holding her at arm's length. A look of disgust painted his angular, bruised face.

"What are you wearing?"

"Clothing."

Sherlock sighed deeply. Mary looked down at the basic button up and trousers she was wearing, then back up at Sherlock.

"We'll fix it."

"There is nothing to fix! I look fine!"

"You look like Mary."

"I am Mary!"

"No, you're not," Sherlock grinned, whirled around and kissed Mrs Hudson on both cheeks. "We'll be out all morning. Likely the afternoon. We're out of milk."

Sherlock threw the door open and grabbed Mary by the wrist, hauling her out the door. She tripped over her feet as Sherlock headed for the curb.

"Sherlock!" John shouted.

"I'm not your housekeeper!" Mrs Hudson cried, though she sounded more fond than exasperated.

Sherlock came to a stop by the curb and threw out his hand for a taxi. Mary tugged her wrist that Sherlock still had a grip on till he finally let her go.

"Why is the mobile I gave you in a bag?"

"I threw it at a wall. Repeatedly," Mary said, handing the bag to him. "It wasn't smart enough to shut up."

He turned the bag over in his hand. "Why?"

"I told you. It made noise."

John snickered.

Sherlock glared at her as a taxi pulled up. Mary threw the door open and got in, quickly followed by Sherlock and John.

"Closest clothing shop," Sherlock ordered. "Something on the high street."

"Why are we going to a clothing shop? I thought we were late?" John asked.

Sherlock did not answer, simply looked out the window. Mary folded her arms across her chest and glared out the other window.

John sighed.

* * *

"I am NOT wearing that."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I am not. I can't afford that anyways!"

"Yes, you can."

"NO! I have no job thanks to you!"

Mary did not care she was shouting in a shop. She did not care if she was having a row with Sherlock Holmes Who Was Still Dead to a Majority of the Public in a clothing shop in the middle of the morning.

"Will you two stop?" John snapped.

Sherlock took a step backwards. Mary fisted her hands and remained held tightly in her stance of attack. She noticed the sale associate who had the misfortune of trying to help them take a few steps backwards, eyeing John.

"Sherlock, what is the point of this?"

"She doesn't look like herself."

"Yes, Sherlock, she does."

"She looks like Mary."

"Who is she supposed to be?"

"Not Mary," Sherlock snapped as if John was an idiot.

"He wants me to look like I used to. It's not going to work. I'm Mary, remember?"

The sales associate further inched away.

"But Sholto doesn't know that," Sherlock reminded her. "He doesn't know of your name change. If you would like to keep that a secret, then you're going to wear this, put the wig on and take out those contacts."

Mary looked around but failed to see a wig.

"You've got a wig in that coat?"

Sherlock smirked. He held out the hanger with the dress. Sighing deeply, Mary snatched it from him and stomped off towards the changing rooms. The sales associate appeared out of thin air and opened the door for her.

"Will you need shoes?"

Mary stared down at the scuffed up flats she was wearing. She nodded her agreement.

"I know just the pair."

The door shut and Mary sighed deeply, staring at the cream dress with yellow dots that created a flower pattern. It reminded Mary of something she had once wore at some point when she'd been famous. She fingered the fabric. It felt rich, smooth and luxurious.

Nothing like the cheap clothing she'd grown used to.

A pair of shoes being slid under the door jolted Mary back to reality. Huffing, she tried the dressed on (it fit her perfectly). She slid her feet into the insanely high heeled shoe and ground her teeth together.

"Mary?"

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

The door flew open. Sherlock smirked and nodded. He turned to the sales associate, a credit card appearing from nowhere.

"We'll take it all. Plus that jacket on the mannequin up front." He turned to Mary. "Don't bother changing."

* * *

They piled into another cab. John kept staring at Mary as if he was trying to figure out where she'd come from. Mary pressed her knees together and tried to remember how to sit properly while wearing a dress. Mary folded her arms across her chest and looked out the window. John shifted uneasily beside her while Sherlock texted someone on his phone.

"You'll have to remove those contacts before we meet Sholto."

"Excuse me?" Mary asked, turning to look at Sherlock next to her.

"You must have the blue eyes," Sherlock reminded her. "If you hadn't chosen to act like a child—"

"I have a perfectly working phone."

"Your mobile is archaic."

"So? It's not like I use it a lot," Mary pointed out. "Especially now since I no longer consult for NSY and have no job."

Sherlock waved his hand at her.

"Sherlock," John chided, managing to convey quite a bit in one word.

"She's the one being unreasonable!" Sherlock shouted.

"You're acting like a three-year-old," Mary reminded him. "I am not being unreasonable, either. It's perfectly reasonable to have a job."

"Not _that_ job," Sherlock snorted. "It was not worthy of you."

"I decide that. Not you."

"You two _are_ like bickering children," John loudly proclaimed. "Are you sure you're not related and she's a long lost sister or something?"

"No."

"Defiantly not. I was not a goblin as a child."

"Nor was I."

"Oh, you were a nasty goblin as a child," Mary assured Sherlock, crossing her arms across her chest. "I am sure Mycroft would agree with me."

Sherlock glared at Mary and refused to speak the rest of the ride.

* * *

They arrived at the office building housing the law offices with an uncomfortable silence wrapping around them. John paid the cabbie as Sherlock all but ran out of the taxi. Mary got out slower, still cranky.

Why was she even there? Sherlock could investigate this so called case without her. Her purpose here was pointless.

She stood on the sidewalk and glowered upwards at the tall office building, not bothering to notice Sherlock striding into the building till John said, "Well, might as well follow."

Mary snapped her eyes back towards the ground to see Sherlock's coat tails vanish as he entered the revolving door. She gave a jerky nod and headed into the building— a little shaky. It'd been years since she'd worn heels and they were not like riding a bike tragically. John took her elbow and helped her along, making it look as if he was simply accompanying her not keeping her steady.

Sherlock was standing by a bank of lifts by the time John and Mary entered, pressing the button repeatedly.

"Hurry up," he ordered rather loudly.

It was unclear if he was speaking to the lifts or them. Once the lift doors opened he threw himself into the lift, while John and Mary following like normal people, John still holding onto Mary's arm.

"Sherlock, you need to calm down a bit," John suggested. "I know you're happy to have a case, but did you failed to notice the heart attacks you caused in the lobby."

"He did?" Mary asked while Sherlock gave John a look that spoke volumes.

"For most of the world, Sherlock Holmes is dead. He ought not to be walking around the City," John reminded the pair. "Mycroft has managed to keep you out of the news with your stunt the other night. Though, I doubt it'll remain out of the news long. You insulted Mrs Forrester."

"I told her the truth," Sherlock corrected, eyes going back towards the doors of the lift. The doors dinged open. Sherlock did not rush out, but indicated John ought to go first. Mary went to follow, but Sherlock grabbed her by the upper arm and held her in place. John let go of her arm, frowning up at Sherlock. "John, go ask for Thaddeus Sholto. You've got an appointment."

Sherlock used his free hand and pushed John out as the doors slammed shut.

"What the hell?"

"You're taking those out," Sherlock insisted.

The doors binged opened and Sherlock dragged her out, Mary tripping over her feet like a child. He walked up to the secretary seated behind a big desk and asked her if she happened to know where the loos were.

"Ground floor."

"Can't we use yours?" Sherlock asked, batting his eyelashes.

"Gag me. Please," Mary moaned, trying to get out of his vise grip on her arm.

The girl behind the desk frowned. "No. You'll have to go to the ground floor."

"Ah, well, cheerio," Sherlock said, turning and heading out of the office— only he didn't head back towards the lifts, but hung a right and used a keycard to get into the offices. "Now, take the contacts out and return to the law offices. John will still be in the lobby waiting. Oh, here."

He handed her a bag and in a swirl of coattails, Sherlock exited stage left.

Mary stood there for a moment, but decided to do as he said. Sometimes it was simply easier. Her battling with Sherlock all morning had left her rather spent.

Moving silently through the halls, she managed to locate the toilets. She headed for the sinks and turned the tap on. Scrubbing while muttering under her breath about what an arse Sherlock happened to be, she cleaned her hands. She looked up, meeting the brown eyes in the mirror. She shook the water off her hands, then dug the pieces of plastic out of her eyes.

She flicked the first one into the sink, followed by the second one. She stared at them for a full minute. Part of her wanted to bin them, while part of her was frightened to death what that meant.

This was the part of the movie where the main character was at a turning point.

Mary was turning back to how she'd appeared before the Tragic Event that Drove Her Into Hiding. The whole contacts thing was likely a Plot Point.

They were just pieces of plastic tinted brown.

They were a safety blanket.

It was time to grow up. Go off to uni, leave the blanket at home for Mum to toss in the trash because it wasn't really a blanket any longer but rather a knotted, stringy rope thing that used to be a blanket.

Okay, she was thinking too much about this. These weren't blankets, they were tinted pieces of flimsy plastic. There was a reason she'd—

"Damn," Mary muttered, grabbing the edge of the sink. "The bastard was right."

She'd been waiting— hiding behind easy to change things.

She had been waiting for John Watson.

Just as Sherlock had said.

Scooping up the pieces of plastic out of the sink she binned them. She picked up the bag from where she'd dropped it upon entering the bathroom and pulled out a high end blonde wig. It was the same shade of blonde Kelia Kensington was known for. Flattening her short, dark hair, she flipped her head over and put the wig on. Flipping her head back up, she stared back at Kelia Kensington for the first time in over six years.

Even without the artfully done makeup to make her eyes bigger and bluer, she looked more like Kelia than Mary at the moment.

It took her another minute to exit the bathroom. She got lost in the twisting, grey halls of the office. She was unable to find the door she'd used to enter, so after ten minutes, she gave up and used the main door. The girl behind the desk up front looked shocked to see Mary emerge out of the door behind her.

"Hey! How'd you get back there!" the girl shouted, standing up.

"Magic," Mary said, putting on her best smile, flicking some blonde hair over her shoulder.

The smile they told her she ought to get trademarked.

The effect was immediate. The girl looked stunned. Her mouth opened and closed several times and she didn't utter a word as Mary got into the lift. Mary gave a little wave as the girl continued to channel a fish as the doors slid shut.

By the time Mary left the law offices, she was sure the entire world would know that Kelia Kensington, the lost actress, had been found.

* * *

_A/N: Sorry this update took so long. I've had this written since late April, but the Sherlock muse has left me and I have yet to really figure out how to get to where I want to get to with this, so updates will be SLOW. The next chapter, which is only roughly sketched out, will be the meeting and I'm trying to figure things out still with the mystery. I don't usually write mysteries for this reason. Sometimes I wonder what I've gotten myself into…_


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